Wal-Mart Wants to be Your Doctor

Or so NPR reports.

The nation's largest retailer is planning to offer medical services ranging from the management of diabetes to HIV infections, NPR and Kaiser Health News have learned.

This raises a question I've long wondered about: Why has there never appeared a giant low-cost provider offering good-enough healthcare at a very low price? Such providers appear in almost every other service industry in the US economy.

Let me rephrase that. We know "why": the 3d party payer system, the fragmentation of the health insurance market into 50 states each with its regulations, etc. etc.

My rephrased question: Why has it not been a public policy priority to support the appearance of such a provider? Isn't that what is most urgently needed if we want to provide better care to more people at a sustainable price?