And how is anyone going to fix that?
What are the causes of high healthcare costs?
Notice I said "healthcare", not "health insurance."
My 12k doesn't include the cost of my insurance. That's an additional $4,000 because my company pays most of my insurance cost.
Before you can fix it, you need to understand it. Wanting to understand and not just jump straight to fixing is a major step forward.
Outsourcing is a/the major cause of cost. Outsourcing creates many levels of companies in the ecosystem, every one of which needs to tack on their profit to the equation. I once counted 18 levels of depth to a medical transaction. If we say that each company was only looking for a 7% profit then the price goes up 337% in order to account for everyone's 7% profit. And we know there are companies that are looking for much more than just 7%.
What causes outsourcing? I can easily see 4 areas
1) billing requirements. Medical billing is out of control with codes, procedures and data interfaces. It's great for the IT industry, not so good for doctors and patients.
2) medicare/medicaid. The government is limiting payments more than insurance companies do, so doctors have to make it up somewhere.
3) Tort. Malpractice insurance companies limit what a doctor can do so they must outsource even basic medical things. And every time you outsource, you're adding not just the new company's profit, but their suppliers, IT systems and billing support companies' profit too.
4) Electronic record keeping - this falls under the "not a bad idea", but when made a requirement, it introduced another big cost to doctors.
Let doctors practice medicine, not business, not defensive law and certainly not government interaction.