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...huge profit margins currently enjoyed by the insurance and health industry.

Huge profits by the health industry? Please rethink that one. Try to think of a garage where you take your car in for serious repairs, and YOU TELL the mechanic what you will pay and he still has to do the work. That is what is taking place in the health industry today.

The federal and state governments as well as the insurance industry dictate what the hospitals will be paid. On top of that, indigents who present themselves to the emergency rooms have to be served, and nobody will pay for varying degrees of what their services cost to provide.

It is seriously grating to see that health insurance companies post tens of billions in profits each year, knowing that they don't provide one single aspirin, one band-aide or take out one splinter for the money.

Hospitals provide this service, and insurance companies siphon off hundreds of billions of dollars without providing any direct service at all. Hospitals go belly up, while insurance companies continue to post large profits.

Take a long look at your local hospital and wonder what you're going to do when they are gone. What will you do when half as many physicians are licensed? That is the goal of any socialized program. And that's where we are headed. And it's not the provider's fault.

Huge profits by the health industry?

See my #52. It is my position that the insurance and pharm companies own the hospitals in order to set their own prices. large cost of health care is what is driving insurance up. Meanwhile the insurance company is free to adjust it's bottom line by claiming write off out of it's hospital holdings.

It is insurance that keeps the cost up- It is never cheaper for someone else to pay your bills for you. The illusion of great cost is what props up the insurance health, and pharmaceutical industries.

Remove the insurance and the prices will fall in line by supply and demand.

Hospitals provide this service, and insurance companies siphon off hundreds of billions of dollars without providing any direct service at all. Hospitals go belly up, while insurance companies continue to post large profits.

Incorrect. 1) Hospitals negotiate with insurance companies individually for the rates they will be paid. Their ability to negotiate favorable rates for themselves is based upon the demand for their facility to a large extent. 2) Hospitals are not going "belly up" by and large. Sure, there's some really poorly run facilities which are not doing well. But hospital costs are rising at a faster rate than any other cost in the healthcare segment (I believe it was 18% last year). Don't cry for the hospitals.

Here's an article from a few years back from USA Today.
Hospital costs

knowing that they don't provide one single aspirin, one band-aide or take out one splinter for the money.

And BTW, regarding this function of a hospital:

It is my opinion that such things shouldn't happen at an e-room anyway. Doctors offices have gotten all uppity and want bankers hours. It has become customary to go to the e-room instead of to the doctor, or even to the doctor's house if needing stitched up after hours (as I used to do). Most of these things, including stitches, colds, long term care issues, etc. could be much cheaper and safer if performed by nurses outfitted with a minivan full of crap in order to perform such as a house call, thus taking the weight off the hospital, the doctors office, and reducing the spread of contagion... while offering reasonable care and good training to the nurses.

Of course, the nurse would have to be able to prescribe and would have to work under a physician... Perhaps attached to a Doctor's office, or an outpatient facility.