An informative look at how health insurance works by Daniel Gross – Slate Magazine. It includes this:
Bush and Giuliani, and advocates of their plans, want to change the dynamic. They want to turn what has been a wholesale, buy-in-bulk business into a retail business. They want to replace a bunch of giant, sophisticated consumers possessing limited bargaining power with a mass of unsophisticated consumers possessing no bargaining power. For some reason, they think you and I can do a better job negotiating with Oxford and Aetna than Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola can.