If the moderators are going to let this thread live, I'll give my .02
I see the main 'hole' in the current system arising out of abuse of the health care and more importantly OVERUSE. In emergency medicine, I am overwhelmed with people on state welfare that come to the ER with 1-4 people whom all want to be seen for cold symptoms that have been present for 2 hours (I'm not kidding). They pay no copays and their prescritption, dental care and referrals are paid in full by YOU and I. We need to limit the access of to health care to this population also - It drives up cost dramatically - Also, as a hospital based agency, I can not turn anybody away, even if they owe us thousands of dollars and clearly have no intentions of paying.
People that have insurance are charged copays and are aware that an ER visit is more expensive than seeing a PCP and they make wiser choices. Nowm this has been taken a step further with health saving accounts where there are monetary incentives to not overuse the system.
These aren't the answers, but are clearly a big part of the problem.
Socialized medicine Doesn;t work and likely never will - The current insurance companies are too rich and definately contribute to the problem too.
Physician Assistants and other midlevel providers as myself, offer the same health care as a physician at reduced costs, but that's not the answer in entirety either.