I'll ask you again, what exactly do private health insurance companies contribute? .......They have funded nearly all the medical care given in the last 50 years or more........... You say all you have to do is send a letter- now what if your bill was not 12k but 112k? you figure a letter would do you any good? What recourse do you have if they don't pay? .......The courts................. Oh, and you want an example of government making something better? Medicare, before medicare we had pretty much chaos. Imagine what would happen now if folks over 65 had to go out and get private insurance - that is if they could get it at all, it would be thousands a month, and if they had chronic conditions? Then what?.......... If you calculate the sum contributed to Medicare over 40 plus years of your working life, I suspect the amounts would come out nearly equal. Currently, the government pays much less than the market rates for care, while foisting off the expense of their self-awarded "discount" onto everyone else. If we go to a universal healthcare system, there won't be a private sector to cover the balance. Costs will go up or the amount of care given will go down. I suspect that both will occur.