Access to advanced medical care can either by gated by one person's wealth or by the average wealth of many people.
At the end of the day though, someone is paying and the only way to actually cost reduce is too have worse treatment.
So tell me, why is random blood work billed for over 400$? Just to analyze the sample?
Part of the problem is definitely inflated pricing and no real transparency.
Unless you need that rockstar surgeon for that super specialty treatment that only the US can offer, the US healthcare system is just overpriced, broken and a money grab
Medicare+Medicaid in the US costs about the same person taxpayer as NHS costs per UK taxpayer. The NHS could be better, but we get universal care for a similar price than what leaves most Americans still needing private care to have any cover at all.
That strongly suggests that the US could at a minimum do far better at providing cost effective care - both public and private.
This is absolutely incorrect in the American system. Insurance companies introduce massive amounts of overhead for little benefit. Every study comparing them to Medicare finds that Medicare is way more efficient.
Most medical care does not need to be advanced. It needs to be effective, but it doesn’t need to be expensive. It needs to be expensive to generate a hefty profit, though, especially when you have a serious condition - you then become a forced buyer and the market does what the market does with forced buyers without special regulations.
If you cut out profit motive, you can _definitely_ make it cheaper. Your statement is incorrect.
but also the cost of treatments generally decreases with time, while the efficacy increases as techniques are refined, disseminated, etc.