I think Lasik is an outlier example. I couldn't find out how much of the population is a good candidate for Lasik, but 61% need corrective eyewear. The proces

I think Lasik is an outlier example. I couldn't find out how much of the population is a good candidate for Lasik, but 61% need corrective eyewear. The process is basically a commodity, it's almost exclusively a quality of life elective procedure, and it's basically a one-shot deal (I know people who traveled for it). I completely agree emergency care is one thing insurance is for, but I think more generally it's "catastrophic costs" which often includes ongoing things. A lot of issues require follow up costs (I've heard insurances are switching from itemized costs to a fixed cost for the whole procedure. Similarly, I see a lot more "continuity of care" in healthcare). As an example, let's say someone had vision loss for a couple minutes. An emergency room visit finds them to be ok in the immediate term, but it was because of a blockage in the heart causing a minor stroke. Which means there's a lot of follow up, with large costs. How do you best incentivize this? It's not "emergency care," there is time to research cost, but putting the cost burden on the patient is more than they can handle (hence insurance). Insurance tries to use cost signals like co-pays. An ongoing cost like dialysis will be optimized around convenience if you don't expose the cost, but exposing the cost may bankrupt them. I think tying healthcare to employment and pushing it as a benefit is the worst offender for the skewing of the market--masking the cost of routine care. Fixing that alone would make me much happier (I also think it would be an economic benefit because of people tied to their jobs and the drag on starting a small business).