Contrast that with a typically optional and not insured procedure like laser eye surgery where prices have fallen over time and are clearly advertised. Consumers can shop around and know ahead of time what the price will be thus prices fell.
Without that option there's nothing free about the market for consumers.
By socializing healthcare, we destroy its efficiency and drive up prices. If everyone goes to the doctor because of a little cough because it's "free", that is precisely the irrational uncapitalistic decision making we do not need. Another aspect is dumping millions into old people with end-stage cancer who die anyway, just prolonging the massive suffering by a couple of months or years (I personally know of such a case and it's heartbreaking how the greed of the doctors and the socialist health care system work together).
You say that like you are predicting the outcome of an experiment that hasn't been tried -- but socialized medicine has been tried in dozens of countries, and the price and efficiency outcomes you predicted have not happened in any of them!
In fact, people going to the doctor more often for things like a "little cough" is a good thing, because it increases the likelihood that serious conditions will be discovered early, in the course of treating less-serious conditions. The life expectancy of Japanese people, which is the highest in the world, has been largely credited to the fact that they visit doctors more frequently than most other people.
This is factually wrong. In countries where such a socialization has happened, a vast increase in medical spending happened as a result (depending on how much it was socialized). And there seems to be no end to the increasing prices of insurances and doctors.
I don't think your idealized "market will fix everything" capitalist model takes account, among many other things, of the very true fact that people are frequently shortsighted and stupid.
If you've had a cough for more than 3 weeks it's probably nothing, but it might be cancer.
https://www.nhs.uk/be-clear-on-cancer/symptoms/lung-cancer
> If you've had a cough for three weeks or more, tell your doctor. It's probably nothing serious, but you're not wasting anyone's time by getting it checked out. Call your GP today.
> By socializing healthcare, we destroy its efficiency and drive up prices. If everyone goes to the doctor because of a little cough because it's "free", that is precisely the irrational uncapitalistic decision making we do not need.
We know you're wrong by looking at rates of medication compliance. People who are prescribed medication often don't take it correctly. This is the case for minor and severe illnesses; it's the case for life-threatening illnesses; and it's the case if people get their meds for free or if they pay market price for their meds.
Socialized healthcare can absolutely include limits on what they will pay for and not to reduce overuse. There's zero reason it has to allow for unconstrained spending.
The US has one of the least socialized and least efficient healthcare systems in the OECD, so I'm quite skeptical about that.
If you walked into Best Buy and they said "Buy this TV or we'll kill you" that would be robbery, not a free market transaction, but that's pretty much the choice you have when you decide to buy healthcare or not.