Hospital operating margins are in the single digits, so what? That doesn't mean that less than 10% of the price of that aspirin goes to profit.
How much of that rent is profit? How much of the drugs being used goes to profit, and how much of the equipment and material of that drug goes to profit, and so on.
If you want to cite a meaningful margin number, use the entire vertical. You can't limit yourself to a single level in the value chain and say that the overall margins are low.
There are definitely upper upper classes making profits in education. "Physical plant" means money going to RE conglomerates. Beyond that the slew of education industry providers seems to make an EBITDA margin on average of more than 10% : https://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_Profitability_Ratios...
It's all one system. If you supplied aspirin at cost+10%, other prices would swing wildly to offset the change. Ultimately, the real expense in health care is health care professionals delivering health care services, and no matter what you think aspirin should cost, the hospital won't run at a deficit; some combination of line-items on your bill is going to add up to the cost of all the professionals delivering the work.
It's not good that "hospital aspirin" has a price disconnected with the economics of aspirin. But it's a sideshow issue. You can't make health care cost effective for consumers by fixing the aspirin problems.
How much of that rent is profit? How much of the drugs being used goes to profit, and how much of the equipment and material of that drug goes to profit, and so on.
If you want to cite a meaningful margin number, use the entire vertical. You can't limit yourself to a single level in the value chain and say that the overall margins are low.
There are definitely upper upper classes making profits in education. "Physical plant" means money going to RE conglomerates. Beyond that the slew of education industry providers seems to make an EBITDA margin on average of more than 10% : https://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_Profitability_Ratios...