> When the marker they use to draw a dot on where they need to cut you during surgery costs $50, it's hard for me to believe that the problem with health care is insurance companies not making enough money.

The insurance companies are the ones paying for that $50 dot. Well, after their discounts it's probably a $10 dot.

It was either Time or Newsweek a few years back which had an excellent long-form article on where health-care spending goes. As I recall, it's not the insurance companies: it's the hospitals, physicians, nurses, other staff and an army of hangers-on and middlemen.