Was at the Imaging Center for knee XRays for the wife and picked up the November 2006 "IMAGING ECONOMICS" in which was an article (page 36) on ethics: "Do The Right Thing".
One example was the very common practice of "self-referral" by doctors who own an interest in imaging centers, and how they abuse the Medicare system by prescribing procedures that are overkill, but well-reimbursed by Medicare, (typically new and expensive ones for which the evidence is not in yet.)
The example given was for the difference between prostatectomy (reimbursed at $5-6000) and intensity modulated radiation therapy ($36-41,000).
From what the author, a medical director of radiation oncology, says, the expensive treatment is rarely justifiable, but is becoming a source of profit for physicians who have invested in the equipment, which is sold by pointing out this shady source of profit.
Now look at these figures, and tell me Universal Health Care, Single Pay, won't be able to pay for itself.
Look under this flap of skin...
(I once worked as the Maintenance Director for a very large medical equipment rental agency, Abbey Rents in Seattle, and was very aware of this sort of gouging: long-term rentals of breathing equipment like APPB's and nebulizers, that returned vast multiples of the actual cost of the equipment to the rental agency. Something that rents for, say $80 per month and only costs $400 brand new, being rented for three or four years, without a service contract (extra). Many many of these situations, mainly caused by the reluctance of Medicare to understand that sales might make more sense than rentals.
The bureaucrats don't care, and the doctors and equipment sales and rental agents collude in cheating the taxpayers, who ultimately pay for it.
Never believe people who say that the free market is the most economical way to distribute health care.
There are too many ways to game the system. As you say, human rights are not commodities to be profited from.
We need to make social status dependent on social service, not material wealth.
We must understand that if you want capitalism, it requires a lot of maintenance, like a hot sports car.
Maybe we need a hybrid, like China is building? Less screaming from the right about individual freedom to die, and less weak-kneed apology from the left about the free market.
The free in free market is
"free to screw the public."
and medical care is the soft underbelly. Gotta have it, can't evaluate it, insurance pays it.
Trifecta for GREED.