The basic laws of economics are predicated on pricing and its relationship to changes in supply and demand. When the entity that pays the bills isn't the one that gets the service, then the whole system will eventually fall apart.
The real problem with health care in this country is the cost of malpractice lawsuits, more than anything else. Thousands of lawyers have become wealthy looking for deep pockets to reach into, and hospitals and doctors are prime targets. There is so much variability in biology that anything that goes wrong can be said to result from negligence. Somebody has to pay the costs of the lawsuits, and that somebody is us. No wonder it is so expensive that many cannot afford it any more.
Bears-repeating bump. At regular intervals.
It also needs to be repeated early, often, and especially loudly when liberals try to get people to glide past it, that Slick and Beast were the people who let the insurance companies into the practice of medicine.
It was they who tore down the "Chinese wall" separating payors from doctors. They did it on purpose, to bureaucratize and screw things up, to prepare the ground with bitter experiences for a second push for nationalization and Sovietization.