The medical care that an individual can receive in America is amazing. I've got a scar on my lip that you can't tell is there unless I'm clean shaven. I'm sure all you out there have similar stories. Americans have access to opticians, dentists, surgeons, doctors, psychological counseling. That is, if you have Health Insurance. Health insurance as we know it, started with Kaiser Permanente, a for-profit group which offers not-for-profit health insurance. I don't understand how this can be the case, seems like a small conflict of interest. Anyway, Healthcare ballooned and here we are today.
By the way, wikipedia indemnity and Managed Care Organization, and have fun wiki diving into the world of legal jargon.

I also recommend watching Micheal Moore's Sicko, detailing the creation of modern Healthcare, and profiling our healthcare next to the public healthcare of Canada, France, Cuba, and Great Britain.

[Little side note, Fire services used to be privatized, you'd pay a fee to a fire squadron, and they'd put out your fires, if you had a fire and the wrong squad came by, your things would go up in smoke, and the firefighters would keep on driving. Education used to be privatized, and was restricted to those who could afford it. Now, we have a basic level of literacy, and access to higher education possible to most. The Postal Service has always been a federal service, and almost all the time, you can send letters or packages to anyone around the world with the knowledge that your mail will be delivered.]

Corporations as we know them today evolved from the 14th amendment, which guaranteed due process and equal protection under law. Corporate lawyers interpreted the amendment to mean that a corporation was a person under law, just the same as John Smith, or Chuck Norris is a person. Time passes and we have Multinational corporations, such as Coke or McDonalds. A corporation is legally bound to hold the interests of shareholders above all else, this means that the bottom line is their bottom line.

So, if corporations manage our healthcare, and the purpose of a corporation is profit, what does that say about the amount of care to be given to members? It means that the minimal amount of care at the cheapest price is given for motivations of profiting the company stockholders.

I highly recommend watching The Corporation, you can actually find it on google videos being distributed freely.
Pt 1 : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3969792790081230711&q=the+corpo...
Pt 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7365345393244917682&q=source:009...

Interesting tidbit, did you know that you can now patent anything that is alive, except for a fullbirth human being. Just think for a moment about the legal ramifications of patenting life. I might even write about it sometime. You'll just have to check back now, won't you?

Till Next Time
-Aaron Siegel