I disagree with your conclusion that universal healthcare for all is the logical end point.
What if we did mandatory catastrophic insurance for everyone (I'm not against the mandate). All other non-life threatening services are negotiable and free market. Its as simple as that. You can even have the government pay for this insurance for every American as sort-of a quasi universal service via taxes. The government will save your life and maybe even pay to "get you back on your feet". The rest is up to you. You can still buy private plans for better high end treatment, but take the lowest barrier out of the picture.
This solves the issue of not turning away people at emergency rooms with life threatening conditions, and allows competition to drive down prices for everything else. Deregulate the rest, remove onerous standard of care requirements that stifle new and innovative treatments, and let the bad apples get google/yelp/whatever reviewed out of existence.
What if we did mandatory catastrophic insurance for everyone (I'm not against the mandate). All other non-life threatening services are negotiable and free market. Its as simple as that. You can even have the government pay for this insurance for every American as sort-of a quasi universal service via taxes. The government will save your life and maybe even pay to "get you back on your feet". The rest is up to you. You can still buy private plans for better high end treatment, but take the lowest barrier out of the picture.
This solves the issue of not turning away people at emergency rooms with life threatening conditions, and allows competition to drive down prices for everything else. Deregulate the rest, remove onerous standard of care requirements that stifle new and innovative treatments, and let the bad apples get google/yelp/whatever reviewed out of existence.