Health care doesn’t work this way, because we’ve put several layers of middlemen—insurers, employers and the government—between patients and the health care they use. If consumers knew what they were paying for health insurance and had real options to shop around, they would have the power to drive enormous changes in American health care. It's one of the paradoxes of health economics that hospitals and other health care providers make more money if more people are sick. But by many measures, utilization of health care services in the U.S. on a volume basis is significantly lower than that of peer nations. But federal intervention—of the wrong kind—is the fundamental reason why American health care is so costly today.

Source: Forbes March 26, 2018 13:30 UTC