Unfortunately none of our politicians want to take on the challenge of changing the system. Regulations in healthcare, specifically insurance is a huge reason we have the crazy pay system in medicine. There is no true market place in medicine. There are limited primary payers in medicine. You have 3rd parties dealing with your health care decisions and payments and then we wonder why its all messed up. First step I would take is to get doctors out of the medical billing business and require individuals to file their own claims with insurance. Cutting out the middle man puts power back in the individual's side and requires insurances to actually be forthright in their payments. No more hiding behind writeoffs and discounts claiming them as payments. (That $23,000 bill will have a close to $20K discount which they try to make look like they paid that, then leave you with the $3000 portion. So you pay all the bill essentially, or close to all, but it feels like they saved you $20k). This would also cost the insurance companies billiions of dollars yearly in administrative costs that they are currently getting for free from every medical office, clinic and hospital that is filing claims and fighting to get payments from the insurance company who is fighting to pay as little as possible. If a doctor's office doesn't have to file claims and have someone constantly working to get paid by insurances, it would be easy to give a set price for services, collect the day of service and the patient would easily save 50-75% right there. This would also cut back on fraudulant claims which are also a lot higher than we realize and cost us and the system a ton of money. One simple change with so many benefits to us, the consumers. But this will never happen because the insurance companies would literally lose billions and their lobby is too strong. Lots of other options out there for drug costs, hospital costs, rising insurance premiums, etc. We just need politicians into the job for the people instead of the money or power.