Re http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/25/the-charts-that-should-dominate-the-health-care-discussion/

Um, that article seems to have a massive, egregious, absurd falsehood in it.

"The reason other countries spend less is that their governments set the prices, and they set them low. The reason we spend so much more is largely because our prices are higher, and by leaving private insurers and medical providers in charge of deciding prices, we’re not doing anything about that in Obamacare."

Um, insurance companies pay for medical care. That's what they're for. They're the ones on the hook for the cost of medical procedures, so they attempt to drive prices as low as they can possibly get away with.

So low, in fact, that I can't afford to take insurance, because at the prices they set I can't make ends meet.

The high price of US medical care is not an insurance company plot, I assure you. Nobody wants the price of medical care lower than do insurance companies.

But what the high price of US medical care is is (among other things) an unintended consequence of how our system of health insurance works.

As discussed in my journal, the nominal prices that appear on bills and EOBs are never charged any insured patient. Insurance companies have contracts with medical providers in which the provider either guarantees a specific discounted rate or guarantees that the insurance company is paid the lowest rate the provider offers. To compensate, providers jack up the nominal price.

Make such price-fixing contracts illegal, and those nominal prices will drop.