Health care providers must post clear and easily understood price schedules to allow people to compare prices (when they have the luxury of doing so). The Federal government sets a maximum profit margin for all procedures, drugs, and physical products, which the states then oversee. This would not keep a doctor from setting any hourly rate but would apply to costs by clinics and hospitals for specific procedures. Insurance coverage must be disclosed to patients prior to procedures that are considered elective or preventive.
Insurance companies are not regulated by the states, but by the Federal government, allowing sales across state lines. Insurance companies are also subject to maximum profit margins (just like utility companies and other monopolies for basic services).
Insurance is decoupled from employment, so everyone must go out and buy their own policy. People are allowed to buy policies that don't cover issues they don't care about or have moral objections about. No policy can be sold that is not for an individual or a nuclear family unit (spouses and minor dependents to age 25). People who qualify for Medicaid can still buy Medicaid instead of private insurance or (perhaps) we just replace it with vouchers for private insurance.
Malpractice reform is enacted to reduce costs for everyone.
Insurance is mandatory, as with ObamaCare. Although I don't like it I realize that the system won't work if healthy people don't pay. And health is like a lottery anyway. No one knows who will get cancer, or be in car accidents, or have freak accidents, or live healthy and die peacefully in their sleep at 98.
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*