The current share of healthcare spending that occurs through government and private insurers is due to government intervention. Out of pocket spending constitut

The current share of healthcare spending that occurs through government and private insurers is due to government intervention. Out of pocket spending constituted the vast majority of spending in the 1950s before these government interventions were enacted. In contrast, cosmetic and laser eye surgery have mostly escaped the effects of these interventions, and are consequently the only fields of medicine where 1. most spending is out of pocket, and 2. prices have increased at below the rate of inflation. As for the socialized health care panacea, if you look at the health care systems of other countries where they have fully socialized expenses, you see huge problems, not exactly the same as the U.S.'s, but absolute disasters nonetheless. Health care as a centralized institution doesn't work.