Switzerland has a “public option”, price controls, and IIRC private insurers have to be non-profits (and possibly that designation means more in their system than the US, I dunno about that).
2) Not for plans that are (IIRC) two years old or newer. I'd be shocked if there aren't a bunch of shenanigans going on with this loophole.
(2) and (3) were part of what I meant by a lack of regulatory bandwidth in another comment. There are rules that could be enforced to promptly impose steep penalties for a company that tries to skirt them. But they just aren't, so after one company starts doing it the rest inevitably follow suit.
take a look at the Fortune 500 list and notice how many health and pharma companies are in the top 50 (and/or top 10)
Yes, I'm suggesting that like 10% of our nominal GDP is actually a deeply fucked up regressive wealth redistribution scheme that doesn't buy tangible productivity, but is essentially a tax-like drag on the economy, but way less efficient than most government-run redistribution schemes. Because it is.
Also my additional point is that nobody really thinks we need to create additional jobs for doctors, as we've currently got a dire shortage of healthcare. I just inquired about rescheduling a primary care visit for my aunt and the office told me they're scheduling out an entire year from now. That's obviously not the same as how soon they could see her for something urgent, but the sheer magnitude of that delay does highlight a problem. I've also seen many 4+ month waits for specialist appointments.