That's not true at all. The U.S. government spends more per person on healthcare than many European countries and regulates more as well, and yet has significantly higher healthcare costs. There are myriad reasons for this, which I'm not going to get into here, but the point is that healthcare costs are a complex beast and simplistic arguments like "more government vs. less", don't explain much.

Specifically the reason services are expensive in US is regulation. Expensive requirements, lawsuit insurance, overpaid doctors whose supply is artificially limited. Universal healthcare in my country sucks. What doesn't suck is that I can go to private providers and get things like MRI/minor surgeries/physio done for like 10% of the cost I would pay in US. That is paying out of pocket without any coverage from the single payer universal insurance. The reason I have that available is that it's easier and cheaper to start providing the services here.

Single payer doesn't really matter. There are countries which do great without it (Switzerland for example). If you want cheaper stuff you need to focus on getting rid of cartels and anti competitive practices. Train more doctors, some through shorter track so they can provide simple checkups/treatments. Force everyone to list prices in clear way. Change the law so you don't go bankrupt when something goes wrong and that you don't need several million investment to provide something as easy as MRI scans. There are tons of obvious things to do. Single payer will not solve those problems.

Full blood panel with all hormones, cholesterol, mineral levels costs like 80$ here and I can get it done any day, any time by just walking into a lab and telling them what I want to get done. No doctor consultation, nothing. The results are available online the same day (with the exception of things like free testosterone that takes several days as they ship it to outside lab). This is done without any coverage, insurance or anything. Just paying out of pocket. Think about why it's possible in a poor Central European country and not in US. Hint: it's not what progressive politicians tell you.

even the US market has very extensive government intervention in it, so I don't think it's a valid comparison to say, US has free market health care and is expensive, while some other place has socialized medicine and is cheap. personally, I am not aware of any good examples of a thriving, free market health care system. it does seem to me that the health care market writ large is spectacularly dysfunctional, as are a handful of other sectors that also have significant government involvement, while many other parts of the economy seem to be miraculously efficient and competent by comparison.

"US has free market health care and is expensive"

The US has a market for private healthcare, but healthcare will never be a free market. It's the antithesis of a free market. Intrinsic inequality of bargaining power and information asymmetry are the biggest reasons for this.

> Intrinsic inequality of bargaining power

This point is usually brought up in regards to healthcare emergencies. But emergencies only make up a small fraction of healthcare spending[1].

Maybe people have less bargaining power because of agreements with providers/insurers. That's a barrier to an effective market with price sensitivity, but it's a contingent one, not a mathematically inevitable one. For much of our healthcare spending the balance of bargaining power could look like it does for food.

1: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/oct/28/nick-gille...

The reason is because the markets are not the same. And why are they not the same? Government(s).

> How do you explain nations with more government involvement in healthcare who have lower healthcare costs?

They made other tradeoffs and inverted the graph. For example cellphones are way more expensive on some countries, cars are taxed up to 100% on others.

I'd like to see evidence that cars and cell phones in these countries are similar or more expensive than the savings from healthcare. I have a sneaking suspicion that the savings from healthcare dwarfs the price increase in consumer goods.