alt Hacker NewsUnfortunately, much of that gets dispersed into an unfathomably complex web of private and profit-seeking interests, with much less actually going to individual beneficiaries.
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ch4s3 • today at 5:36 PM
A lot just gets sucked up by 3rd parties of all stripes. Only ~20% of hospitals are for profit institutions for example.
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jimbokun • today at 5:34 PM
I don’t think that’s true. US government services generally have very low overhead.
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BurningFrog • today at 7:02 PM
Not sure if this is comforting or distressing, but it's the same in all welfare states.
Social Security almost entirely flows to beneficiaries, as do programs like SNAP, where overhead is around 6-7% (admittedly, fraud might be a good bit higher than that); likewise Medicare is one of the most efficient systems at getting money directly to medical providers (although fraud might be a problem there too, estimates range from 10%-25%).