Consumer protection is vastly overrated IMHO. Better to have more affordable healthcare for all than high liability healthcare that only the rich can afford.
Oh, see, I moved out of the US to a place with socialized health care, so I don't have to worry about that. Turns out that you can do a lot of cost saving measures when you pool money together. In other words, it isn't consumer protection making the prices high, but rather it is being sold like a good. Consumer protection, if it were really strong in the US would protect you by making sure that you get what the label says is inside. In other words, keeps you from eating a product with eggs when you have an egg allergy.
That cost isn't so high, either. None of us are ever going to be knowledgeable enough to check everything and we know that things like "third party auditing" and "reputation" can really be gamed. And we know that it doesn't matter if your local hospital is bad if it is the only one in the area - and that sort of thing happens all the time. Regulation isn't perfect, but I would rather not live in an era without it.
For reference: My parents went bankrupt back in 2003 because my mother had a stroke and insurance denied her claims because they called it a pre-existing condition. I think people that claim consumer protection is vastly overrated have never found themselves in a situation where they get fucked over by under-regulated corporations.
Same with chronic problems.
Did those states see the predicted effects?
And there's simple solutions to healthcare that all nations except the US have found.
Without regulations, there's no consumer protection or guarantee that what's purchased was what was described. Very bad when it comes to biologically active materials and "well, it worked for me" isn't the kind of defence I want to hear in the marketplace.
And I'm not sure how that would eliminate costs due to transport or raw materials unless you allow stealing them.