This is a stunningly ignorant column by someone with 10 books and a radio show but then... it's PBS The author identifies 2 core reasons for high costs in Alaska then goes into the weeds trying to justify a single payer system. We live in a high risk high cost market, that's our choice and responsibility to bare, sticking my fingers into someone else's pockets to cover my cost is simple thievery which is what socialized medicine is. The bigger reason is that government got involved with insurance  the first place.It's not greedy Doctors or any of the other assertions the author threw out "possibles", Obamacare doubled our rates because that's what socialized anything does. By Gov getting involved with medicine in the first place, medicare/medicaid they immediately set in motion the inherent inflation cycle which led to having to  cut costs, they did that by limiting doctor fees which then had to be recouped, they recouped by shifting those costs to private Insurance which we now pay.