This is an artifact of the medical insurance system in the US, which focuses upon low-cost, high-volume processing of patients and gouging the delivery staff on payments. Subscribe to an expensive concierge physician service (the kind that is cash/check/bank-transfer only, no insurance allowed, some don't even take credit cards), and the difference is night and day; impeccable bedside manners, no rushed visits, 24x7 phone access to your personally-assigned doctor (with only light screening by the RN on duty, if any screening at all), some even perform house calls.

It is no secret that if you are well-to-do or wealthier in the US, then it offers you some of the best medical services and quality delivery you can buy anywhere in the world; the steady stream of medical tourism by the very wealthy non-US patients year-in and year-out attests to that. And if you are not so well-off in the US, then any complex medical complications requiring sophisticated treatment to survive can be a horrifically terrifying experience, depending upon your individual roll of the dice in our byzantine insurance maze.

While many US citizens decry "socialism" when single-payer systems are discussed, I personally believe Coase's Nature of the Firm might offer one possible solution set out of many possible such sets, in terms of a solution along the lines of co-ops.