That's not a symptom of health care being a natural monopoly. That's a symptom of a lack of price transparency.

1. Laws can correct this.

2. A large segment of consumers paying out of pocket would also result in competitive pressure for hospitals to disclose prices.

Fwiw, I don't have this problem with smaller medical clinics.

Correct, right now this sucks. But it could be fixed in ways that don't involve socializing medicine.

You don’t need to socialize medicine, just make all HMOs and providers non for profits which would mean they have to reinvest everything into their core services rather than posting returns for investors.