“If there were no emergency room visits from kids with strep throat, for instance, this would allow those hospitals to charge insurance companies less for their inpatient services. ”

We already have a partial solution for this. I don’t know what it’s called elsewhere, but around my neck of the woods it goes by the name of “Urgent Care Facility”. These are about half the cost of emergency rooms, sometimes even less. I’ve become even more familiar with them over the last couple of months, since my wife got here broken arm treated in one.

The idea has been around a long time. It’s a market reaction to a perceived need. It took so long to appear because of government red tape. With a single-payer system, you get more red tape–as the long lines in Canada and UK, with worse care, are prime examples of.