Again, you're conflating insurance and health care.
Medical insurance in the US is a parasite that is killing its host (health care providers).
Medical insurance in the US is a parasite that is killing its host (health care providers).
Insurance or the individual pays the bill, that is no different than it ever has been. People without insurance are less likely to have their medical bills paid, that's just the way it is.
>Insurance or the individual pays the bill, that is no different than it ever has been.
Strictly speaking this is true. I agree with this statement.
However, our current insurance industry based system (colloquially known as the ACA or Obamacare) has caused "health care" to pivot away from providing medical treatment to individual patients, and toward a system of "health care" companies charging insurance companies for services provided to a 3rd party (the patient).
The patient is no longer a customer, the insurance company is. There is effectively no health care provider in the US that caters to a patient as a customer, especially if we're talking about hospital level medical care.
I have never encountered the notion that the ACA is the cause of this, and I was around before the ACA and don't see how that part wasn't the same before it, except other things were worse (the whole "pre-existing conditions" thing, for one). What do you mean?