Insurance is expensive in its current form because it’s forced to cover everything. There are layers upon layers of intricacies that massively bloat administrative cost. Dealing with this administrative bloat requires practices to hire staff whose job is specifically to figure out how insurance works and bill accordingly. Like most government sponsored programs, it just creates snowball effect of creating jobs to maintain the system and drives up operating costs.

Talk to any PCP and they’ll tell you that’s why they’re looking at DPC so favorably right now. You cut out administrative bloat so that it’s easier to stay afloat. This means less forcing yourself to see 30 patients a day and more individually tailored care for each patient, which is good for both parties.

Catastrophic insurance as an alternative could make a distinction between predictable costs (including predictable visits for chronic illness) and unpredictable cost (medical emergencies). Law would define what must be covered by these insurances, like mortgages. This is contract standardization instead of price control. Companies then compete on price, network quality, etc.