The misuse of key terms in the discussion of healthcare does much damage to the quality of the discussion. It is important that we recognize that the “healthcare” discussion is actually commingling three separate issues.
Firstly—health insurance is not health care. Insurance companies do not provide health care. Care comes from medical professionals like doctors and nurses and other aides that assist them. Care is what is consumed by a healthcare consumer.
Health insurance is a scheme of risk mitigation. The idea of insurance is to protect a consumer from financial ruin associated with a costly medical care event or series of events. At least that's how it once worked. Now, health insurance is the primary middleman in complicated scheme of regulation, welfare, and payment approvals. It is the only form of insurance commonly purchased or discussed that is 1) often linked to employment status or employer benefits, and 2) used mostly as a payment scheme rather than an insurance scheme.
Finally, there is the element of wealth transfer or welfare. This is one of the government's primary roles in our health care system. It is a substantial contributor to the mess our system is in.
The only way a functional system can be built is Health, healthcare, health insurance, and welfare and considered as distinct concepts with small overlaps if any. If we decided the insurance should mean care, wealth transfer should mean care, and so forth, then the basic roles in the system disappear and we end up with a disaster like our present system.
It's time we let providers be providers. It's time we limited insurance companies only to insurance. Welfare systems and wealth transfers must be done only at the very front or back of the system, not in between all the stages.
The issue of "healthcare" isn't nearly as complicated as we are led to believe it is. What 's missing is moral courage and political will, not knowledge or understanding. Too many people are getting too rich off our present system of dependency, and nobody in political power seems willing to confront that.