Mark Cuban Says Health Insurance Shouldn't Exist — 'You Don't Have to Grab Every Nickel When It's the Health of the Entire Country at Stake'

Mark Cuban isn’t interested in patching up the healthcare system with duct tape and buzzwords. He wants to rip it open, throw it under a spotlight, and ask what a lot of Americans are already thinking: Why is this entire industry allowed to operate in complete darkness?

In a February fireside chat with Hospitalogy founder Blake Madden—later revisited in April—the billionaire behind Cost Plus Drugs didn’t hold back. He took aim at insurance companies, hospitals, consultants, and just about anyone profiting off the confusion. And yes, he said it: “I don’t think there’s a reason that health insurance should exist.”

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Cuban’s not looking to compete with insurers. He just wants to make them irrelevant. “We’re going to try to make it so that self-insured employers have no reason to work with insurance companies,” he said. In his view, insurers approve plans that restrict access and bury costs behind layers of red tape. Worse, they don’t even ask the most basic questions.

“Why is the health of our entire country based on providers who don’t know their own f*cking costs?” he asked.

Hospitals don’t get a pass either. Cuban blasted their refusal to publish general ledgers or disclose what procedures and services actually cost. He called out the culture of secrecy, noting that executives are afraid of what transparency might reveal. “People don’t want to do that because they’re scared of what it would do for their business.”

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To Cuban, that’s more than just bad management—it’s a moral failure. “This isn’t the Dallas Mavericks,” he said. “This is the health and welfare of our entire country.”

And while he proudly calls himself a capitalist, he draws a line when it comes to healthcare. “You don’t have to just grab every nickel that you can get when there’s this at stake.”

If the industry refuses to act on its own, Cuban believes it’s time for regulators to step in. Not to micromanage. Not to take over. Just to require the basics.

“You’ve got to open the books,” he said.

He’s pushing for laws that would force hospitals and insurers to disclose actual costs, margins, and spending—something he says should be standard practice in any business that deals with life-and-death decisions. If transparency threatens the business model, Cuban’s argument is simple: maybe that business shouldn’t exist in the first place.

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