What makes anyone think that the congress that broke the system in any way is capable of fixing it? It is very likely that as long as we have a congress that acts like it does we can never have a system that works well.
We do, and according the rule of diminishing returns for every bit of superiority we eek out of the system it costs exponentially more. To be one percent better in terms of convenience and results and access it might only cost us one percent more. But to be two percent better might cost us 3% more, etc. People don't seem to be willing to give up the private rooms and the clean hospitals and the abundance of equipment just waiting to be used. In a land of abundance and luxury most people have enough money not just to own multiple tv sets in every home but to pay more for health care.
The data shows a clear correlation between how much extra money a counry has lying around and how much it is willing to spend on all things including health care:
http://74.6.238.252/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=cost+per+person+health+care+nations&fr=altavista&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=cost+per+person+health+care+nations&d=4628905590655684&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=695e872e,fec52d10&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=R9pkPOqd3VbRQKaKILpKAw--
In other words poor countries spend less on health care than rich countries. Since the US has the absolute highest level of disposable income it will spend the most on health care.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_per_capita_personal_income
Even our poor live better than the middle class in many developed countries in the world.
The costs cannot continue to go up and as soon as they hit the level of equilibrium they will stop climbing. If we want them to go down then we need to allow the market forces that are the downward drivers of cost to have their effect. It is as simple as understanding that the exact same principles apply to every single purchase made in this country. You can only charge so much for a pound of flour before people start buying cornmeal.
That is way to complex to try to reproduce what works elsewhere. What makes one think that what works for a nation of fish eaters with their constitution could work for a nation of french fry eaters with our constitution.
All we have ever needed was for market forces to work. We have a country where at every turn congress seems determined to drive up the cost of college by making 529 plans and to drive up the cost of food by creating ethanol subsidies and to drive up the cost of health care by taxing individual choice but leaving employer based programs untaxed.
How about congress stop messing with the markets in their never ending game of whack-a-mole?
