“all of things you mention are pretty much inevitable in any sector of the economy where third-party payment is the normal course of affairs”
That’s only true if certain other conditions hold. For instance the third party payer system works well for auto insurance, but only because drivers are smart enough to pay for general upkeep on their own and save insurance for great, big expenses. The problem with health insurance is that people use it to pay for every damn thing, from dollar one at the clinic to spinal surgery. Which might be what you meant by “the normal course of affairs.”
But also there’s another party, a fourth party if you will, in your employer. So that people don’t even buy insurance directly, let alone healthcare. Then there’s the lack of competition, thanks to the fifth party that is the government.
1. At a bare minimum, auto insurance simply covers the driver's liability in the event of an accident. Drivers have the option of securing additional coverage for collision, theft, etc., depending on the value of the vehicle.
2. An auto insurance company has a reasonable degree of certainty when it comes to pricing a policy for those things that are comparable with a medical policy: loss or damage to the vehicle. An insurance company can accurately establish the risk for a policy for a $30,000 car, for example, by knowing that their maximum exposure in the event of a total loss is $30,000 (and is likely to be much less, as the value of the car declines over time). There is no such certainty in a medical insurance policy.
3. It's true that people use their medical insurance to "pay for every damn thing, from dollar one at the clinic to spinal surgery." There is no parallel to this in auto insurance, because auto insurance doesn't cover routine maintenance. However, imagine an auto insurance policy that not only covered major losses due to theft, accidents, etc. -- but also covered mechanical failures? Under this scenario, auto insurance would be very similar to health coverage ... and you could be damn sure that insurance companies would insist on covering routine maintenance such as oil changes.
The real issue here is that "health insurance" isn't really insurance at all. It's basically a pre-paid health care plan that has turned into a large racket in which the whole point of the game is to figure out how to get someone else to pay for the things you can't afford yourself.