So when do problems in healthcare stop being the fault of the proverbial greedy insurance companies and start being an indication that the system is too socialized already?  Maybe when it’s more than 50% reliant on government?  Consider this from a Ted Nesi report on WPRI.com:

Care New England also said more than half its gross revenue from patient services came from the two major government health programs in 2015-16, with Medicare accounting for 32% and Medicaid accounting for 28%. The share from Blue Cross was roughly steady at 20%.

At this point, Care New England is essentially what I’ve been calling a “government satellite.”  Given heavy regulations, it’s essentially a quasi-public agency that has some independent revenue.

Keep this in mind, too, the next time you hear about how government is going to hold reimbursement prices down for Medicare and Medicaid.  If you ran a business and your biggest — indeed, majority — customer (which also happened to have regulatory power over you) dictated prices for the services you provided to it, your only option would be to reduce services to other clients or find ways to soak those clients for more.

This is just one way in which government involvement in the healthcare industry is making things worse.