It is a damn good idea, although one (of many) ideas whose raison d'etre is a little bit unfortunate. In so many clinics you can't even make an appointment without (the correct brand of) insurance, though sometimes if you ask nicely about self-pay you get a large but finite, figure.

We'd recover vast institutional waste by removing health insurance as we know it from the equation - or at least by empowering providers to get paid by whomever they please. But until that (never) happens, we can at least make it less bad through automation.