Why Obamacare can't lower costs

[Prophet 451]

1. Healthcare costs in the USA are so high because...

...they can be. No business in the world operates on a model of "costs + percentage profit". Every business charges whatever they can get away with. In the US, because you have no national healthcare system, they can get away with a lot. I call the method of preventing that my "backstop theory" of pricing. Basically, because the NHS here provides a "backstop", a bottom floor of service for cost, private insurers have to compete with that. People still buy private insurance here for all kinds of reasons. Some want brand name drugs (the NHS tends toward generics to keep costs down), luxurious hospitals (NHS tends toward functional and spartan to keep costs down and make cleaning easier) or to skip the availability lists (which often means they'll be seen by an NHS doctor moonlighting). Some just want the status symbol. But the NHS offers a basic level of service, below which standards cannot fall.