re: Why does Government even have to be in health care?

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You ever heard of lifetime medical costs limit? Pre-existing conditions? Getting screwed financially for life because me or my child decided to have a permanent disability? Getting charged extra for daring to be pregnant?

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A freer market brings those costs down through competition both with the medical providers and the insurance companies themselves. What the ACA, Medicare and Medicaid have done is frick the laws of supply and demand. The four rules of Supply and Demand in a normal market are:

1. If demand increases and supply remains unchanged, then it leads to higher equilibrium price and higher quantity.
2. If demand decreases and supply remains unchanged, then it leads to lower equilibrium price and lower quantity.
3. If supply increases and demand remains unchanged, then it leads to lower equilibrium price and higher quantity.
4. If supply decreases and demand remains unchanged, then it leads to higher equilibrium price and lower quantity.

What we have in the healthcare market is a situation where Supply (healthcare professionals) is limited due to the high barrier of entry (ie: education) but government programs throwing metric fricktons of money. This doesn't so much "create" more Demand as it actualizes more Demand that had been unrealized due to Price.

So if Demand increases but Supply remains the same, what happens to Price? It must go up (unless a ceiling is put in place, in that case market pressures must go elsewhere).

One of the biggest things Congress should do (but won't because "muh freebies111") would be to allow ER's to refuse service to non-emergency issues (hang-nail, fevers under 100, psoriasis, etc).