system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The health insurance system of the United States is the biggest organized crime/extortion ring in history.

Extortion, racketeering, preying on the weak and vulnerable. They have leaned on politicians for years for legitimacy. The business exists only to collect protection money from our population. A terrible side effect is the strain placed on the doctors and nurses that are unable to use their knowledge and skill to best treat any patient that comes under their care. My view will not be changed by any job numbers, but if anyone can explain to me how our nation is benefitted in any way or how this leech industry is not driving up our cost of care my view could be changed.
gpt
No private healthcare system can run smoothly without health insurance. Now, that’s not to say our medical system runs smoothly — it is an expensive failure, for reasons that include the poorly run insurance system, but health insurance itself serves a vital function.

In countries where healthcare is less expensive, health insurance is purchased to cover the cost of unforeseen expenses. It is not intended to cover the cost of routine medical care. There is a strong argument that ballooning medical costs came first, not the other way around — American public health collapsed (see the rise of corn syrup, the collapse of exercise, etc), and these compounded existing problems such as luxury medicine (for example, MRIs for offices that don’t really need MRIs — compare MRI machines per capita in the USA to Canada). Insurance billing practices are one factor, but hospital administrators also try like hell to overcharge insurance companies for every little thing because “why not, they have the money!” and ordinary people don’t contest it because they don’t have the expertise to tell whether what their hospital is charging them is fair or not.

So, although insurance companies can engage in unethical practices, and certainly do retain lobbyists to maintain their privileged position, medical providers and the rise of “specialists” in place of general practitioners has driven the raw cost of care up just as much, and pushed people into the arms of what used to be a smaller and less powerful business.

TL;DR: fixing other factors that make medicine so expensive would make people less dependent on insurance, and drive down the cost of being insured.