It may be ... simply ... the hospitals looking out for their own well being. And from their own standpoint, it does make a lot of sense. From the consumer standpoint, I just don’t know.
Liberty and the free market is the way to go.
Insurance companies would wind up offering popular catastrophic insurance for peanuts. Consumers would pay much less because insurance/government/most-bureaucracy would be cut out of the equation. With some tort reform, costs would plummet even further.
Case in point: Doctor's today that have opted out of dealing with any insurance company.
There was a TV news segment in these parts a few months back about turning annual medical checkups into small-group sessions for people with the same general health situations. It seemed like a possibly good innovation.
I'm all for clinic-style health care. If the hospitals took over insurance and offered a walk-in first come first served clinic option to their enrollees, that would be a step in a good direction.
For one year in the late 1960s, I was just making ends meet and depended on clinic-style medicine at hospital-run facility. It's the best medical care I ever had.