One way to reduce healthcare costs is to bust the AMA aka the doctor's cartel

Nurse practitioners and physicians assistants could probably professionally handle half of all primary care encounters.  But then docs would have to settle for a C class Mercedes and we can't have that.

One of the enduring mysteries of O'care was how the enlightened ones were going to reduce costs be gunning demand in a totally cartelized market without taking a single concrete step to bust the cartels.  It's almost as if they didn't really care so long as they got control and got to carve up the rackets for themselves.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/02/nurse-practitioners-treat-patients-well