> That would only explain emergency procedure costs. No. It also includes maintenance medicine. If I stop taking my asthma medicine, my quality of life would

> That would only explain emergency procedure costs. No. It also includes maintenance medicine. If I stop taking my asthma medicine, my quality of life would rapidly deteriorate and I would sooner or later have to be admitted to A&E for an asthma attack. So my life depends on those medicines. The same for people with Depression, Chronic Pain, Severe Vitamin Deficiencies, etc. > How about laws that prevent companies from selling insurance across state lines? That seems extremely logical given how much variation in local law exists in North America. > but they have the negative effect of stifling innovation that could bring down costs and make people safer in the long run could. Given the sheer amount of bad science in medicine at the moment (e.g. refusing to publish negative studies), it is not likely. Medicine is difficult, and where we have rushed drugs through we have an extremely poor track record (Such as, a type of SRIs being prescribed, that later was discovered to raise the incidence of suicide among adolescents. In this specific instance this was known before it went on market, but the papers were not published).