Insurance Companies be Dammed

My stepdad rails against doctors and insurance companies. IMHO, and the real problem is, ins. cos. are in business for themselves. They want to make money, and unfortunately, they can do things that are not in the beneficiaries' best interest, like delay and pay (their most common M.O.). Doctors deliver a service, and now that businesses have shifted health ins. premiums at least partially to the beneficiaries (that is, if you're lucky enough to even have health ins.), it has become a hot button issue.

AFAIK, the best way to fix the problem is to have a baseline federal health insurance HMO, currently known as medicare, and require that all federal employees subscribe to it, including the Congresscritters. If that were the case, you'd see how quickly the problem gets fixed.