I'm getting into hand-wavey territory here, IANAprofessional in a related discipline, etc., and my personal leaning is towards socializing public services such

I'm getting into hand-wavey territory here, IANAprofessional in a related discipline, etc., and my personal leaning is towards socializing public services such as medicine already. So disclaimed... I think "only (any large organization) can negotiate a better price" is a little misleading on the surface. On a macro level it should, in theory, be true, and should already be happening with private insurers; when I've looked at my own EOBs, they consistently will list a service, a coding, a billed price, an "allowed" price that is always much less than the billed price, and the amount paid (which predictably matches the "allowed" price). And yeah, when we're watching politicians pontificate, we end up having strong opinions about the total price of healthcare and its effect on the economy. That said, does anyone _really_ make personal healthcare decisions based on the macro effect on the economy? I personally doubt it. I posit that the vast majority of US citizens and residents wouldn't care if the annual healthcare spend changed by US$200 million, but any individual American cares A WHOLE LOT if you bill them personally for US$100,000 and their insurance doesn't cover it (or much of it). It seems to me that a much better approach to this entire conversation is "let's drastically reduce the number of Americans forced into bankruptcy because they or their dependent got sick". My own inclination is that that'll require government intervention, because the incentives for a for-profit insurance company are to pay out as little as possible, but I'm open to anything that addresses that problem.