I didn’t say it must be less efficient. I said our system is less efficient than almost any UHC system we could install in its place. You are a federal contractor. I am, in essence, a healthcare administrator. Our system is utterly broken.
Since you asked for hard numbers: “In 1999, health administration costs totaled at least $294.3 billion in the United States, or $1,059 per capita.” Today, the NHS budget for England is about $182 billion, rising to a little under $220 billion when the rest of the UK is taken into account. That’s to cover every man, woman and child in the UK, or one fifth of the US population. Throw in BUPA’s total global revenues of ~$9 billion,* and you have a total UK health expenditure budget of $230 billion.
If you want to compare the UK figures to 2015 US administration costs, the disparity is even more bleak. And it’s not like the UK NHS is a byword for efficiency; far from it. It’s a pretty middle-of-the-road system that is fully nationalized. There are far more efficient models for us to emulate.
*BUPA controls 40% of the UK private health insurance market but derives 70% of its revenue overseas, so its total numbers are a reasonable proxy for total UK private healthcare spending.