If healthcare is perfectly inelastic and inelasticity is the dominant factor in pricing, shouldn't we expect all procedures cost $LIFE_SAVINGS each already? I'm not trying to be glib; my point is that a) healthcare is _not_ perfectly inelastic, and b) even in the presence of high inelasticity, we can observe that market forces can exert downwards pressure on pricing. I think that arguing for a remedy solely on the basis of elasticity is misguided and potentially ignores larger problems within the market.

Consider the example of food, in general. Demand for food is wildly inelastic - without it provided regularly, for your entire life, you _will_ die. If elasticity were the only consideration in pricing, we should expect food to be break-the-bank expensive, but it clearly isn't. What else is different between the healthcare and food markets?

(To be clear, I'm not defending the current state of our healthcare system. It's broken in a lot of ways, and is way more expensive than it needs to be. I'm just arguing against the idea that the cause of its dysfunction is inelasticity of demand.)

I think for many many people, all procedures already do cost $LIFE_SAVINGS. Don't > half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck?

Yes, nearly 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck[1].

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/01/11/live-pa...

> If elasticity were the only consideration in pricing, we should expect food to be break-the-bank expensive, but it clearly isn't.

Because welfare (and subsidy) programs exist so people aren't desperate for food, just like people who are covered under medicaid are not desperate to pay for health services.

There is really no mystery here.