* Health care costs were growing out of control before these laws, which seem to have slowed that trend short-term but not long-term as the industry pivoted.
* Health care costs were growing out of control before these laws, which seem to have slowed that trend short-term but not long-term as the industry pivoted.
We do not have this in healthcare. Providers form cartels - at least in Northern California, this is so bad that the state AG is investigating (not very effectually) [0]. Customers generally can't even tell what a provider charges, so there is no price competition. There aren't many insurers, and they compete on so many incomprehensible dimensions that customers can't usefully choose. (And the most useful thing customers can look at is the network, but see the above issue with provider cartels.) Pharmacy benefits are highly corrupt and incomprehensible.
[0] We have Sutter Health, UCSF, Stanford, and Kaiser. There is very little in the way of independent providers left. Sutter Health in particular has aggressively merged with any available competition.
> An actual, non-corrupt, free market where customers are not locked in and there are more than just a handful of providers
I’m not suggesting an unregulated market. I’m suggesting a market in which antitrust laws are aggressively enforced.