This is the sort of idea that can only start as a whisper - I am just looking for comments.
Right now, the United States - and many other nations - reimburses for treatments, rather than cures. Obviously, the treatment process is rather necessary, so removing it from the equation entirely is naive.
Rather than reimburse treatments directly, however, a price tag could be placed on providing a cure or prevention instead. Individual treatments that do not directly lead to a cure should be specifically underreimbursed instead. That is, remove the very financial incentive to treat instead of cure.
One idea I had for a 'capitalist single payer' system was to allow for a limited number of hospitals to charge a percentage over the reimbursement rate. The private payer would have a plan with the hospital, insurance company, or specifically just pay them directly.
Guaranteed baseline care, and if you want to be privileged, be privileged.
That sort of situation would work well with a pay per cure setup - no one gets paid without a cure. Steps in the process of prevention or cure would get a percentage of the overall reimbursement, based on requirements.
Even if the public option passes - even if single payer passes, something like this is going to be necessary in order to implement real health care reform.