Mark Cuban on the $38 trillion national debt and the absurdity of U.S. healthcare: we wouldn’t pay for potato chips like this
"Can you imagine if a Pringles distributor paid full retail to Pringles and then sold to grocery stores for full retail, and then the grocery stores had to wait for a rebate?"
Mark Cuban has an idea for how to stop the runaway train that is the $38 trillion national debt, and it has a lot to do with the online pharmacy company he founded in January 2022. On Christmas Eve, the billionaire investor posted on X about his frustrations with the insurance market.
If we fined insurers and providers $100 every time they over-billed, incorrectly denied care or misrepresented any amount of patient out of pocket, we could pay of the national debt
They play on the fear and information asymmetry that exists in healthcare
Break them up. Make… https://t.co/yc83T2tHs6
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) December 24, 2025
Insurers and providers, according to Cuban, “play on the fear and information asymmetry that exists in healthcare.” He advocated for them to be broken up, so as to “make the markets efficient again.”
While Cuban’s proposal focused on $100 fines for insurers that over-bill or deny care, the broader thrust of his argument is dismantling opaque middlemen and forcing transparent pricing—as he does with his Cost Plus Drugs pharmacy—could help tame one of the biggest drivers of America’s fiscal strain.
America’s national debt surged past $38 trillion in October, adding roughly $1 trillion in just over two months in 2025—twice the pace of typical growth since 2000, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a leading fiscal watchdog. Annual interest payments are already around $1 trillion and could total as much as $14 trillion over the coming decade, a trajectory the watchdog warns is “no way for a great nation like America to run its finances.” A closer look at health insurance and over-billing doesn’t exactly find fixing the issue would fix the debt or deficit, but Cuban is right that something is definitely off in this space.
How Cost Plus Drugs fits in
Cost Plus Drugs sells medications at their manufacturing cost, plus a flat 15% markup, a small pharmacy fee, and a posted shipping charge. The company cuts out traditional pharmacy benefit managers and negotiates directly with manufacturers, publishing acquisition costs and formulas so customers can see exactly how their prices are built.
Fortune and other outlets have reported Cost Plus Drugs can slash the price of some generics from thousands of dollars a month to double‑digit sums, especially for patients who are uninsured or stuck with high deductibles. Cuban argues if similar transparency and direct‑to‑consumer models were applied across health care—combined with rules like letting cash prices count toward insurance deductibles—the country could strip out layers of waste that burden both families and, ultimately, public budgets.