"Paying patients" is the key term. That's the system we have now. How's that working out?

It really depends on how we, as a society, define healthcare: as a need or a want, as a public or private good...
Obviously it's both in either case and not all cases are equally one or the other in either case. It's not as cut and dry as many issues. And there is no path that will please everyone.

Our decision has to be consistent with how we define healthcare.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

Actually patients aren't paying now. They have no idea how much medical procedures cost. They pay their premium and expect for the insurance company to do all the work from there. Our system isn't perfect mostly because of the lack of price awareness, but it's a better system than what's being used elsewhere in the world, and from what I've seen the government can't manage anything well, why would I trust them with health care.

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Its not an easy fix. First doctor/ service pricing needs to be reviewed. WHy is it over $400 to see a doctor. Just to see them! What kind of profits are the insurance companys making. Then what legal issues can be adressed to protect a doctor from lawsuits but still be effective for faulty doctors. Only after this can you actualy make affordable care. Political blind fixes wont solve the issue.

Here's the problem in a nutshell. Health insurance is a unique "industry": it is most profitable when you refuse to do business with people that need the product the most. I have no problem with a doctor that sacrifices much of his time to his profession to cure people making serious money. I do have a problem with throwing 28-47% of the money into companies whose mission is to deny health care as much as possible.

Now, I am going to agree that I think government should stay out of health care delivery. However, I think it would do a far better job managing the insurance than we can ever hope to see from a private system. In other words, the hospitals, doctors, labs, etc. all stay private, and we just switch to a public insurance system.

You can quote zero "price awareness" but that simply isn't the reality of the situation: one-half of all bankruptcies in the United States are from medical bills. Of those, 3/4 of the bankrupt people had health insurance. They were economically ruined by co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance, denied claims because the t wasn't crossed, etc, etc, etc. You know, the money games the insurance companies play to try to avoid paying every possible penny.

Furthermore, if a private system is so effective, then why is 28-47 cents of every dollar going to overhead rather than care? Why are doctors' offices crammed with billing assistants whose sole job is the haggle with the insurers in order to get them to honor their claims? Why are businesses stuck with the ever-increasing bill, and many of the small businesses dropping coverage?

This country needs a single-payer system, pure and simple. We could drop the cost of health care by nearly 25% overnight just by implementing it, with further costs savings coming as paperwork overhead is reduced. Single-payer is the best of both worlds: the practice of medicine stays private and competitive, and the insurance is publicly accountable.

We simply cannot drop insurance altogether and just tell people "good luck paying for that!" and hope the prices drop. Why the heck do you think medical insurance was created in the first place? Because people couldn't afford to pay huge bills directly. Do you really think that in these times, when savings rates are negative for the first time since the Republican Great Depression, that people are going to be able to create savings accounts for health care costs? If you really believe that, then I have some oceanfront property in Oklahoma to sell you.

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Member of the vast Radical Middle conspiracy.

You know you've won an argument when you get a neg rep with a sarcastic "yeah" as the comment.

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That was addressed to anyone who thinks that conservatives are all hypocrites because they want help from the government when they need it. Those people are not conservative, they are what we call "me-too" conservatives. People who are only interested in what they can get for themselves, whether it is from the government or from lack of government.

That is not free market government! Conservatives SUPPORT free market government. This is simply another example of how government intervention in the system messes it up!

In the system that we have now, many people do not pay. They get handouts from the government. That is most definitely not working out for the system. If everyone had to pay for their own healthcare we just wouldn't have the problems that plague the system.

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It depends also on how you define a person's rights.

Your "right" to healthcare ends at my right to the fruits of my own labor.

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The solution to that is simple. People need to get life long plans for themselves. They need to get insurance for life at a fixed rate when they are young and healthy. That way, when they get older, the insurance company can afford to pay their medical bills because it has gotten enough money from them in the past to pay for it.

The problem with having a public insurance system is then that the government still has to make a "profit" so to speak. They need the money to fund the actual program and pay their workers who are involved in the system. In a private system, it is easy to see where this profit exists because it is included in the price of the insurance. People who then go and support a government system that would exclude profit don't realize that that profit necessary to run the "business" (even if that business is part of the government) does come from somewhere. It comes in either losses for the government, made up for in taxes, or from a loss of actual healthcare given from the insurance. That can occur by either denying the insured's benefits or by denying the doctor the market price of his or her services. Both lead to failures in the system.

One word, repeated over and over.

SUE SUE SUE. If they violate your contract, SUE THEM.

That is the reason why you need contracts. The insurance companies don't want to pay, but they are required to by contract. If they violate it, you SUE them. They have to follow the law to you know.

A certain amount of overhead is necessary, though 50% is quite excessive. Insurance companies need to live up to their claims, and they need to be sued if they don't follow up. It only takes a few law suits before they learn not to even try to deny anyone what they have said they would give them, people just need to be aware of this. Law suit caps need to be eliminated as they interfere in the market with disastrous results.

Costs would most likely only drop on the surface. They would be made up for in other areas, as I explained in the first part of this post. Public accountability can be achieved through private methods. You sue them when they are not accountable. It's simple.

It is the people's fault if they choose not to save any money, and they will pay for that later on. If you waste your money, then don't be surprised when you suddenly can't afford to pay that medical bill. Insurance will never be dropped so long as there is an incentive for people to pay for reduction in risk, and so long as people can make a profit from supplying that reduction in risk. Medical insurance was not "created" to help people with their bills. No one is just going to pay them for you.

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Yes, and?
Not understood. Everyone will pay, at least anyone earning enough to pay taxes.