The cost of medical equipment in the US often has very little to do with the BOM costs (Bill of Materials, the cost of the parts required to manufacture the pro

The cost of medical equipment in the US often has very little to do with the BOM costs (Bill of Materials, the cost of the parts required to manufacture the product). Medical equipment providers have massive and onerous regulatory burdens on top of certification requirements. Even a relatively simple product an cost tens of millions of dollars to bring to market after design and engineering is completely done. This is one of the key problems with the US healthcare system and why talk of this or that insurance scheme (regardless of content) is absolutely ridiculous. To use a parallel, it's like talking about selling a $10 burger for less without changing the underlying cost structure that causes a burger to have to be sold for $10. Anyone who proposes a "new and improved" insurance scheme betrays an utter lack of understanding of the most fundamental of concepts: If you don't do a thing about baseline costs there is no insurance-based solution that can ever "fix" the problem. This means taking a very hard look at the cost (in time and money) of the regulatory burden as well as the other element of that cost structure: Tort reform. Both of those factors increase the cost of absolutely everything even remotely related to the medical industry. Fix that first and then medical insurance will magically become cheaper and better.