The thing is that these don’t hold up well when compared to other peer nations, especially with the top EU healthcare - per capita spend is double in the US and outcomes are not better (actually worse than some).
The more likely issue are lack of competition and high cost of entry (regulatory and educational). Regulatory you can’t really loosen, as that’s a direct protection for patients. Educational costs for doctors we can absolutely fix.
The lack of competition probably cannot be fixed with the normal “market” approaches because you are not dealing with a rational consumer behavior - when people are sick they are anything but rational. This is where something like a public option health care plan could come in with a strong negotiating position. Unfortunately, there is a good chance politics would prevent that from negotiating as well…
1. Is that it is just out of control in the US, but there are also some valid reasons, like,
2. Aging population. As people get older, they need more medical care, so an aging population will have higher average healthcare spend than a young population.
3. Advances in healthcare tech. We can treat more things, so there are more things to receive healthcare services for. And we can also treat things for longer, at great expense. Something along the line of: 10 years ago you could live with disease A for 10 years at a cost X. Now you can live for 20 years at cost X^2.