The irresponsible Obama supporters that don’t pay their medical bills ( or most other bills for that matter) and Insurance company policies both contributed to the problem too IMO (developed through talking to many healthcare providers in the past.) Allegedly, the non-payment rate was so high they had to overbilll the “paying” patients to make up the difference; almost the same result as socialized medicine if you think about it. I think the medical industry just went a little too overboard with it and the domino effect applied and it caused the price of medical care to rise exponentially.
I know this is going to sound very lib of me, but I really think insurance companies and hospitals(along with the government) bear a huge responsibility for the mess we're in. My daughter and son in law have had Blue Cross and Blue Shield of SC for the last several years. My son in law (who is a top notch high billing corporate attorney) tells me the billing and reimbursement is such a mess that the majority of medical situations have errors either in the billing or reimbursement. My daughter no longer pays the medical bills that come in.
A couple of times a year, my son in law sits down, assembles all the medical bills and insurance statements, and then contacts the hospitals, doctors and BC/BS to get things all squared away. Not every bill is wrong, obviously, but enough of them are that it makes the most sense to ignore all of them until all facts are in. And the least stressful course of action is to rountinely ignore all medical bills until my son in law has a day to spend on them. For that to be their least stressful course of action, it's obvious we have a screwed up system.