Yeah, because people who clip coupons have great insurance that doesn't force them to use a specific provider which has a specific product for a specific rate?

Yeah, because people who clip coupons have great insurance that doesn't force them to use a specific provider which has a specific product for a specific rate? You ever HAD an HMO? The M is for "Managed" and trust me, they manage it. When I had to see an orthopedist because I sprained both my ankles, I not only had to wait 1.5 weeks, but I had to drive to some random office park 45 minutes away to get the subsequent CT scan he prescribed me afterwards, because that was the option my insurance co. gave me. Health services are not - NOT! - too expensive because people don't have to pay directly. That is not the problem in the US. As I described in the above posts, I have paid out of pocket for several healthcare things in Austria -- before I had the social insurance -- and it cost less than the equivalent in the US, with the exchange rate. The extremely high cost of education, the overhead of insurance company management (it takes time and money to deny all those claims), handling insurance claims (a huge % of administrative work for doctors' offices), the usurious cost of malpractice insurance, and of course, the profit motive in creation of medicine (which naturally raises the cost of the FDA's resources), etc., etc. all conspire to create the expense. These costs can be drastically reduced in a single-payer system, or one close to it, especially one with free higher education. (Austria is not quite single-payer, although every single citizen is insured by the govt. There are, I think, 3 types of social insurance, and some people have additional "hospital memberships" (~US$700/yr) or additional private insurance.) Not to mention that taking away the costs of preventative care, tests, and early intervention can, over a lifetime, reduce the total cost of a person's required healthcare. Why on earth do you want to blame the people who need the MRI, whether they choose the Budget Rent-a-Wreck or the Premium version? (How ridiculous!)