> Medicine does not have few providers because of "capitalism". It has few providers because of regulation that artificially limits the supply of providers. In a free market, the market would provide whatever supply of providers is needed to meet people's health care needs in the most efficient way. But regulation prevents that from happening.
I would say medicine has few providers because of -
1. economies of scale for medication - meaning a Bayer selling 10 million motrin/ibuprofen can undercut LocalPharma if they tried to comptete - and 1
2. because of more complex factors for docs/nurses, possibly regulations but also difficult and poorly structured studies/residencies & poor market structure.
> Yet somehow we manage to have regulations to prevent food from killing people, without restricting the supply of supermarkets, and without impairing competition among them. We could do the same for health care.
It is probably possible for a half-competent person to run a mom and pop store with just a few thousand dollars of revenue, and maybe 2-3 months (maybe less if you have your own farm). Even a small medical setup like a dentist's clinic or a doctor's office needs years more of expensive education plus possibly trained staff (technicians/nurses etc).
The entry of barrier to healthcare is extremely high. However unlike how you can just go to a different store if you don't like the prices in one place, in medicine if a drug is made by 1 company and it costs $$$ you don't have many options. You can substitute tomatoes for potatoes but can't with meds.
There are a lot of fields where free markets with minimal/no regulations are very helpful, but medicine is not one of them.