The dichotomy you present is false. Only in the absolutely insane US system one needs to burn through savings to get paleative care.
Health, just like fire fighting, should not be a for-profit business.
Health, just like fire fighting, should not be a for-profit business.
End-of-life care is intensive, chronic, risky and generally involves cutting-edge techniques (since yesterday's death sentence is today's extendable life). This is fundamental to the cost of care. As a result, end-of-life costs are similar across the board [1].
If there is a unique American angle to this, it's doctors afraid of being sued spending too much on dying Americans.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/cjarlotta/2016/01/19/end-of-lif...
US has a reasonable share of non-profit hospitals and other medical institutions, but the prices are not drastically different.
Random googling suggests that average doctor salary in Los Angeles is in the range $195,335–$254,517. Across the pond average doctor salary in Ireland is quoted at €48,020. For context, a registered nurse in California is making on average $94,120.
European or Asian medical professionals go to medical or nursing school with the goals of joining the middle class. In the US "graduated med school" is synonymous with raking in cash.
Your mistake is to think that nonprofit means that they don't make profit. They still pay a ton of money to their administrators and doctors. And the rest of the profit goes into fancy buildings.
Fire fighting still cost money. non profit medical still costs money. And yes, there is only so much medical care to go around.