As a primary care physician, I had a similar experience as the doctor in this story except I gave up on private practice to join the IHS. Even in a state where one insurance company didn't dominate the market, reimbursement decreased over time such that my 4 doctor practice was continually losing money. Electronic health record(EHR) did not help but decreased our productivity and made us more distant from our patients. It did improve my handwriting......I have mastered now 3 different EHRs and they all do the same: decrease productivity(for primary care), create a barrior between dr and patient and are frought with errors. Most are hard to read as drs tend to put too much into the visit report that is unnecessary or redundant to save time(recopy what was in a previous visit). 
    There is a great deal wrong with the American healthcare(dieasecare) system but I'm not sure a single payer system will fix it. A system where a dr is constantly worried about getting sued drives costs up.