For a country that prides itself on CapItAlIsM, U.S. healthcare is the farthest thing from it.
- Doctors and hospitals don't compete on price
- Prices aren't just opaque, they are unknowable
- Shopping around is not possible
- Insurer incentive is to maximize billing (cost). They pass along cost as increased premiums to an employer. Employer passes along increased costs to employee as below-inflation wage increases
Capitalism doesn’t work well for goods with inelastic demand. Every other developed country understands this and has a nationalized system. The only reason we don’t have universal healthcare is basically unlucky flukes.
> The only reason we don’t have universal healthcare is basically unlucky flukes.
You think its a fluke and not intentional corruption of the system? These companies pays both parties a lot so nobody will ever fix this, that isn't a fluke that is just plain old corruption.
Voters don’t want universal healthcare. There is some lobbying, but an entire party’s voters are composed of people who only care about taxes and ensuring that those less than them do not benrfit from wealth redistribution.
This is why even the meager amount of wealth redistribution we got (which was really young to old and not wealthy to poor) came about due to a fluke 6 months in 2009 that one party had 60 senate votes, and 58 or so votes supported a taxpayer funded option, but 42 did not, so the taxpayer funded option did not make it into the final bill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health_insurance_option