[antisthenes]

None of those issues address the elephant in the room.

If you dismantle the incumbent system and introduce efficiencies that bring US health care spending in line with other developed countries, millions of health insurance workers would be out of their [parasitic] jobs. Which is politically untenable.

The underlying issue is incentive incompatibility. The health insurance industry is a behemoth 10x the size of the automotive industry, for example. You can imagine what kind of lobbying power they have as a result. And they are not interested in anything that destroys their jobs.

[nickff]

Not the TLC, but I agree with you. The biggest costs in healthcare are not insurance company or hospital dividends, or even pharmaceuticals. The biggest costs are the wages paid to doctors, nurses, and administrators. The sad part is that very little efforts seems to be directed to improving the patient experience, such as might be accomplished by introducing patient advocates or guides.