I have been reading about doctors and hospitals who take far less if the patient pays cash or arranges payment outside of insurance and that would put us where we were before insurance shoved their face into the whole situation. The problem comes when a catastrophic illness occurs and specialized equipment & medicines are needed- it's not something many people can afford. Fortunately, endowments and special funds are available at some hospitals- I knew someone who had a heart attack- he needed a triple bypass and a new valve. They kept him in a drug-induced coma for 5 days and without health insurance, it would have cost well over $100K, but it was covered by some kind of fund.

There's nothing easy about solving this and the size of the US population is part of that- I'd really like people to stop telling us that we should be more like Canada, Sweden or other countries when their countries have a fraction of the people we do and after their people have taken better care of themselves. The insurance industry has done a terrible job of implementing preventive care, the FDA has screwed the pooch with their food pyramid and too many people are like fish in a barrel for food commercials.