At the Daily Journal Corporation’s annual meeting on Feb. 15, 2023, Charlie Munger was asked about companies choosing to self-insure, and the answer wandered somewhere more interesting. “The cost of American medical care and medical insurance is a disgrace,” he said. “If you go to Singapore, you’ll find that they do the whole thing better than we do and it costs 20% of what we pay.”
Munger was 99 years old that day and died later that same year on Nov. 28. He was Warren Buffett’s business partner for more than four decades and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) until his death, and he had spent years complaining publicly about what American medicine costs. The remark has been quoted plenty of times since. What nobody has done is check it, which is unusual, because unlike most billionaire opinions, it names a country and a number and is therefore falsifiable.
