I may be missing something, but in what way does having government-provided health care make the cost to the consumer more obvious. It seems like that would actually make the problem worse.
Regarding reason #2: I don’t think that had anything to do with my dad’s situation. It seemed from my vantage point to be bureaucracy and general government incompetence, something I can’t fathom would get better if they had responsibility for all health care.
As for specialties, I believe they do make proportionally more income (neurosurgeons, proctologists, etc), but they also tend to have significantly higher malpractice insurance payments due to the riskier nature of what they do.