Who's making the profit???

Physician compensation dropped 10% last year, will drop 10% this year, and will drop another 10% for the next two years. Government sets medicare reimbursement rates for specific procedures, private insurance companies follow. Pretty soon you're going to have mass exodus of highly talented doctors into retirement as it's no longer worth the 12 hours days, on-call nights and 100+ chances per day to get sued by ambulance-chasing lawyers.

So lets look at the cost aspect:
Private Health Insurance Rates: Steadily rising
Reimbursement Paid to Physicians: Steadily falling
With the spread increasing, where's the money going??? INSURANCE COMPANIES.

Insurance companies are taking advantage of this situation by the US Gov't: "We only have $10B to pay out on Medicare reimbursements this year, and there are more piglets suckling on the sow, so we'll just pay the doctors less for each procedure they do."

Oh, and Dr. Smith, don't you ever make one little mistake or I'll sue your for millions and make your malpractice premium go from $35K per year to $50K - even when you've never been sued.

Rebound, go wander through your local V.A. hospital sometime. That's NOT profit driven. Your healtcare is absolutely pathetic because there's no competition for patient referrals, no motive to work efficiently which leads to LONG waits for just routine care, and you get the doctors who may not have the talent to compete in a profit driven market. OR, their trained in a foreign country and imported because no other docs want to work in those conditions. When a doctor goes on straight salary, at 5:00PM, he/she goes home to be with the family and leaves patients to wait for tomorrow.