if it was treated like health insurance. For some unknown reason, a lot of people seem to think that health insurance should cover every possible expense. To be comparable, they'd have to expect auto insurance to cover car washes, paint jobs, fill-ups, oil changes, etc.

My wife is the nurse manager for a thriving medical practice. A little known aspect of health care is that a great deal of doctors would gladly accept a much lower office visit charge if people paid immediately. Doctors have to employ one or more employees whose full-time job is to fight with insurance companies and the government for payment. It can take from weeks to months for the doctors to get paid, which not only has a time value of money cost, it can lead to cash flow problems.

Some people like to play the class envy game about how much money doctors earn but many of them wouldn't be willing to pay the price that doctors have paid. Doctors have to endure years of medical school (often leaving the graduates $100,000 or more in debt) plus a year or more of internship (very long hours and low pay) followed by several more years of residency. They also have to contend with high overhead (office space, staff, and insurance) and long hours (commonly from 60-80 hours a week). For all that, they get to fight with the insurance companies, HMOs, and the government over proper treatment for their patients. I've read recent reports that quite a few doctors are leaving their practices because it just isn't worth it anymore. I've also read that medical school applications were down substancially this year. Given all that doctors have to tolerate, it really isn't too hard to understand why.