Yes, but what we are getting is so very different. In modern medicine physician fees are not the major expense. If all physicians worked for free, and nothing else at all changed, we would still see steadily increasing costs and care that is way too expensive for all but the wealthiest to pay out of pocket.
Obamacare is resulting in centralization of medical care into large hospital systems, so physicians like the ones involved in this article have less and less options to ‘shop around’ for facilities that will give their patients a break on cost. Further, private physicians are giving up on staying independent, and are joining these big hospital systems. The result is that we are creating a bureaucratic medical monopoly in which physicians have little voice, and competition is diminished.
Further, the ability of physicians to create unique new facilities, targeted to specific medical needs, has been suppressed by law. This is very problematic, and hurts the consumer, IMHO. If a bunch of oncologists, hematologists, oncological surgeons, hospitalists, and other related practitioners and allied health care personnel want to start a stand alone cancer treatment hospital, in which focused care results in better care and decreased costs, they will have a very hard time. The same would be true for cardiologists and cardiothoracic and vascular surgeons joining together to start a heart/cardiovascular hospital. These types of ventures could be very efficient, and thus increase quality at the same time they decrease costs. But they are suppressed.
Market principles are most definitely not at play.
An example: an area hospital wanted an MRI machine (in the 1990's). A permit was required, and it was denied. The reason given was that "excess use" of the machine would be made so as to increase billing & hence income. The hospital ended up joining with several other hospitals to share a MRI machine available on a rotating basis. The MRI was in the "trailer" portion of a tractor-trailer, which was dropped off every week or two for several days.
Government imposed scarcity no doubt negatively impacted care available at each hospital. It also restricts sales of MRI manufacturers, meaning that costs of developing and producing the machines is spread over fewer sales, meaning higher prices for each MRI machine.
Insurance is another toxin. And now that a huge government bureaucracy is being implemented to oversee every aspect of health care provision and insurance - itself already an overhead - costs will/are becoming astronomical.
The Central Planners require a gargantuan bureaucracy inquiring into every minutia so that THEY may make a decision for YOU. The Central Planners and their bureaucrats certainly don't work for free, they do not produce accurate results, and they have not the right. You and I each have the right to make our own decisions.
The Central Planners need to dry up and blow away. Their communist ideas are contrary to our freedom, our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence - notwithstanding the opinion of nine attorneys in costumes.