[publius911]

Well, yes, Jim, but risk management to spread the costs over time and probability is going to be necessary, not cash-on-the-barrelhead out of one’s pocket per individual per instance, as a few here seem to be saying.

That would define classic privately negotiated insurance which worked flawlessly for 500 years.

Obamacare was never intended as insurance, and it succeeded; whatever it is, is a bottomless pit of expense and total control over every man woman and child in the country.

I prefer CW2!!

[imardmd1]

That would define classic privately negotiated insurance which worked flawlessly for 500 years.

That is exactly what I meant, but I put it into clear words. The problem was that the medical doctors themselves got into the insurance business (Blue Cross, Blue Shield), competing with the benefits obtainable from private insurers (MetLife, Prudential, etc.).

My picture is that when they the doctors, then the major providers of the services, began to set the rates that the doctor-owned insurance company would pay them, the private insurers were at a loss to match, and the insured no longer had an agent to bargain for them, so the rates eventually skyrocketed, and the patient base just became a cash cow to milk at will, for whatever syndicate held the plundering levers.