ET---I was in the insurance business from 1986-1999 (active with a liscense for another 5 years). The cost of insurance is directly related to the cost of medical procedures and hospitals. During that time the cost of healthcare (without any government mandates to speak of) was growing at 3 times the inflation rate.
It would be logical to ask: "WHY?"Several factors kick in:1) Doctors are in it for the money and expect no less than $200K up per year.
2) Drug companies are in it for the money and the same drugs bought in Canada/Mexico cost about 30% of inside the US border.
3) Hospitals are in it for the money and charge $10 for an aspirin along with other "incidental" costs.
4) People are convinced they must not get sick or die---and a magic pill is their solution to constant "feeling well."
Put these things together and you have a prescription for high costs. Add in the greedy ambulance-chasing lawyers and you have something outside the field which contributes to high and rising costs. In Greenville, NC, right across the street from a gigantic medical center is an equally gigantic law office of Taft, Taft, and Hagler inviting anyone with a gripe to get their counsel---of which they get 30% each case won!
Medicine has changed for the better. What used to require great (almost magical) skills in heart surgery can now be done with a stint inserted from the groin argery without invasive surgery! So why the high cost?
Example: I have an acquaintance who had a stint procedure done for a blocked caronary artery in Ghana (the care was comparable to the US). The total cost of the procedure--including the hospital---was $1,500! In America it would have been anywhere from $15,000 to $150,000 depending on the location.
I fail to see your logic. We are a nation of pill poppers. The TV advertises the latest magic. They spend 2/3 time of the commercial speaking at auctioneer speed all the side effects---only to fend off lawsuits!
It's really simple: we are a nation of sissies failing to admit people get sick and some die. As long as there is money to be made from witchdoctors and pharma, it will be the same. Government intervention---at it's basic level---sets limits on what a government-backed insurance program will pay.
Doctors don't like it / pharma certainly does not like it / people paying through taxes actually benefit with cost savings and adequate healthcare. Not many in England like their system, but we could do better if we chose. Few British Doctors own a house in the mountains, another at the seashore, a really fancy one where they work, and all the family members drive a Rolls-Royce. There are controls on cost there.
BUT the average citizen gets a fair healthcare at a fair tax---and they deal with the issues we do not seem to want to address. When the AMA and Pharmaceuticals have massive lobbists highly paid you get to the bottom =
Show Me The Money!