And when Obamacare kicks in, my healthcare life will still be fundamentally managed by insurance companies, with somewhat changed regulation around the margins but still extremely profitable.
You have to be careful there, because some of the largest consolidated insurance providers are nonprofits that are incentivized to maximize overhead (to the benefit of internal executives and managers). The ones that aren't have to compete with the ones that are.
FWIW, I used to work on an ambulance and when the person didn't have insurance the cost was $500, not $8000. Not sure what we billed insurance though. Oh, and if they couldn't pay, we didn't follow-up. They were sent one bill and that was it.
