Now now - don’t try and rewrite history. As you well know, the insurance industry was among those opposing a national insurance system before world war 2 but was unwilling to step in. Hence the incentives.

‘As Michael Tanner demonstrates in a recent analysis (to which I link in this post), rampant health care inflation is a global phenomenon. ‘

US healthcare inflation has been running at twice the rate of western Europe, and in any case soem countries such as the UK have been deliberately increasing spend. A question for you - to what do you attribute higher costs of US hospital care? It seems that it is basically higher charges - nothing else.

‘ABSTRACT: U.S. citizens spent $5,267 per capita for health care in 2002—53 percent
more than any other country. Two possible reasons for the differential are supply constraints
that create waiting lists in other countries and the level of malpractice litigation and
defensive medicine in the United States. Services that typically have queues in other countries
account for only 3 percent of U.S. health spending. The cost of defending U.S. malpractice
claims is estimated at $6.5 billion in 2001, only 0.46 percent of total health spending.
The two most important reasons for higher U.S. spending appear to be higher incomes and
higher medical care prices.’

Health Spending In The United
States And The Rest Of The
Industrialized World

Examining the impact of waiting lists and litigation reveals no significant effects on the U.S. health spending differential.
by Gerard F. Anderson, Peter S. Hussey, Bianca K. Frogner, and Hugh R. Waters