[aggieben]

> How long were you on hold while your kid was clutching his arm?

None at all. Possibly less time than I would have spent with a 911 operator asking me my address and whatnot.

> Many people are not good at judging what is an emergency

Perhaps, but I think in the main emergency care is an outlier in relative terms. I have no citation for you, but I just can't imagine that emergency care (i.e., you don't have time to make decisions about who to see, etc) is a very large proportion of healthcare dollars spent (and is also where insurance can actually make sense).

I think the goal should be to optimize the system for non-emergency care by making it a consumer-oriented market. As long as third parties are spending most of the money it can't be that, and until we have price transparency, the control of expenditures can never be with the patient.