What's the ideal way to fix healthcare

My regular readers know I am in ardent opposition to Obamacare.  However, I do not want you guys to assume for one second that I am not concerned for the 40 or so million people who don't have health insurance.  I do care.  Yet this is not the way to go about it. 

Allow me to give you some examples.  We have the war on poverty that was supposed to end poverty.  We threw hundreds of billions of dollars at the poor, and all it did was exacerbate the problem.  We still have poverty, and we also have a lot less money.  Poverty lives on despite the war on poverty.

Look at the American Educational System.  The Federal Government took over education in America, and we've thrown more money into that than any other Government program, and America's kids are still not the best educated kids in the world.  We still have a poor education system, and we have a lot less money.  And we still have poeple saying we need to toss more money at education. 

All these programs have created is a great beurocracy.  Instead of solving problems, they make problems worse.  Instead of money going to kids it goes to the beurocrats; it goes to lobbyists; it goes to unions (like the teachers union).  I'm not against the poor, and I'm not against improving education any more than I'm against good healthcare.  I'm just saying adding more government, throwing more money at a broken wheel, is no way to fix a broken horse carriage. 

The way to fix education is to go to the root of the problem and fix that.  Where is the problem?  Why are our kids not getting good grades in science and math?  Where can we do better?  How can we do better? 

Likewise, the way to fix healthcare is to go to the root of the problem.  Let's back up.  Why are healthcare costs so high?  What's the real cause, not some made up cause.  I don't want to hear some cause the makes people in Washington feel good, and so they try to find a made up cure for a made up cause.  No, I want to know the real cause.  I want to know:  Is our healthcare system really in trouble? 

Is it really as bad as some portray it?  If so, why?  Are our cures working or exacerbating the problem?