That world without insurance companies or 3rd party payers will never exist. If I had a $1 million dollar house, the probability is high that I will never use it, but I would still protect my very valuable asset. Why would you not transfer the risk to someone else(that has MORE money and resources) for valuable assets OR the most valuable asset, your body?
When you say that Health Insurance Companies provide no value, say that to someone who NEEDS health insurance. I wonder how they will respond? Govt run health care is not the answer, but blaming health ins companies is equally as fallacious. It shows the salient problem in this country: The lack of education of economics, money and finance.

26 year olds will get their own insurance. They will find their rates will be cheaper on their own.

Logic, Reason and common sense all rolled into one article.

Health insurance is a pooled risk.People choose to transfer their risk to the pool(insurance company) because they they don't want to retain the risk for various reasons. There is a cost to transfer the risk. If you ask the ins company to handle the most of the risk, the more expensive. Its that simple.
I will agree with you on this ONE point. Just allowing ins companies to compete across state lines is not going to simply lower rates. The pricing of health insurance is based on zip codes and other factors. People will just buy insurance from the cheapest zip code, in turn raising that price.
People need to have more money kept in their pocket in order to make better choices with health care and health insurance.

Why would you want the insurance companies to pay for a check up or mammogram when they are once per year? If the average annual check up is $300, why not save up the money for that check up that you have ONCE PER YEAR? Are times THAT difficult that you cant save up $300 for a one time visit? You will pay $300 per month just to have that coverage, just so you can have a $300 annual check up paid by the insurance company. That is counterintuitive.

Dr. Thomas Sowell provides, logical common sense to this mis understood topic. Economics is the study of scarce resources with alternative uses. The REAL scare resource in this problem or Health Care "Crisis" is money. This is why people transfer the health care service(risk) to Insurance companies or the Govt. They also have their premiums paid by the employer. Why doesn't Mr. Obama and Congress cut out regulation, lower taxes, and allow the average American to keep more money to re allocate those scares resources(dollars) to alternative uses(Health Saving Accounts). This will give American people the power to CHOSE, thus dropping the prices in Health Care.

This entire health care "debate" is just like Alice in Wonderland. All this non-sense makes no sense. Things that make sense are considered non-sense. Does that make sense?

Another Excellent Article by Dr.Sowell.The lack of thinking in the following subjects:Logic, Economics, Math, Finance, Science, and History is the real cause of the economic crisis.