You are correct. The whole mess began with Ted Kennedy and the well meaning but misguided philosophy of "preventative care". He was the mastermind behind the HMO or Health Maintenance Organization concept of insurance. He and a lot of others believed that by providing free or nearly free office visits, early detection of serious conditions would reduce medical costs. It was very wrong.
For some reason, Democrats never seem to figure out that if you give people something for nothing they will abuse it. Before the HMO, we did not have "health insurance" we had "hospitalization insurance". Insurance is actually a financial planning tool. It exists to protect financial assets of the insured. Hospitalization paid for major health care costs such as emergency care, surgery, in-patient care etc. We paid for our own regular health care maintenance.
I am old enough to remember. Before HMO's you could call for an appointment with any doctor you wanted and either pay for service at the time of the visit or arrange a payment plan if you were a regular customer. We had family doctors in our neighborhood who knew us we had good relationships. After HMO's, you could only go to "in network" doctors and when you did you wait for hours in overcrowded waiting rooms for impersonal, assembly line care. Most of the people there did not even need to see a doctor but since it was free... That meant that really sick people had to wait and wait.
Your point is very valid. Insurance is not health care. Everything would be a lot better if we completely abandoned the current system and returned to paying for our own regular care and having insurance for major issues. A good improvement would be tax exempt health savings accounts that could be used to pay for regular care and incidentals. But the best way to keep costs down is to allow the consumer to shop around for the best value.
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