&gt; How long were you on hold while your kid was clutching his arm?<p>None at all.  Possibly less time than I would have spent with a 911 operator asking me my address and whatnot.<p>&gt; Many people are not good at judging what is an emergency<p>Perhaps, but I think in the main emergency care is an outlier in relative terms.  I have no citation for you, but I just can&#x27;t imagine that emergency care (i.e., you don&#x27;t have time to make decisions about who to see, etc) is a very large proportion of healthcare dollars spent (and is also where insurance can actually make sense).<p>I think the goal should be to optimize the system for non-emergency care by making it a consumer-oriented market.  As long as third parties are spending most of the money it can&#x27;t be that, and until we have price transparency, the control of expenditures can never be with the patient.