Again, it's private and for profit, but it's not market based. It's just a big ball of bureaucracy, unintended consequences, and corruption (at least in the sense that the system isn't following its intended purposes). If it were market based, there would be a trivially discoverable price for commodity operations and such.
How much does it cost for a skin cancer screening in Topeka? It depends? Well, that's a routine procedure that isn't really offered in the open market. It should just have published (and even advertised!) prices so normal consumers can shop around for quality screenings at fair prices.
I'm very critical of the American healthcare system, if that wasn't clear. But its failings are certainly not being too market based or too unregulated.
"Golly, I may be having a heart attack. I think I should take a moment to shop around for a cardiologist, so I can get quality treatment for fair prices."
Don't expect market forces to come to the rescue. It doesn't work that way.
Emergency rooms and insurance makes a ton of sense for heart attacks. They makes little sense for routine things like cholesterol tests.
Some things are very expensive but also predictable. Like giving birth. Or reparative plastic surgery. Or non-emergency heart surgery. People would shop around for those things as appropriate.
There is no need to have faith in anything special. As I said in my original post, it's just a matter of looking at healthcare systems in most of the developed world. The healthcare systems that work best, in any published study and metric, have much more public involvement that the US system.
"Fervor" is what it takes to believe in utopian solutions that go exactly in the opposite direction to the success stories, and with no evidence whatsoever that they work in the real world.
Oh, we look abroad. We like what Indonesia is doing with mandatory health savings accounts that is owned by the citizen (can't be raided by crooked politicians, a la social security). I wonder if you can explain: if socialized health care is so great, why do so many Brits purchase supplemental private health insurance?
Any study or metric, huh? Sounds like you prefer lies, damn lies, and statistics.
For instance, the US is hands-down the best in the world for intensive care after premature births. But you wouldn't know that if you just looked at infant mortality rates as compared to other countries because they use a different standard for what constitutes a "live birth". We actually place some value on life and work really hard to rescue the preemies, but that skews our numbers because lots of them still die.
When you make blanket statements, try bolstering them with some truth or else you sound like an ideologue.
Drill down a little. Make sure you shake those assumptions you've been fed and make the ideas resilient to attacks.
Often the goal is to let the like-minded know they're not alone. Other times it's to let the open minded know there's a rational position they might not have considered.
I think part of combating our bubble-filled culture is to speak up even when it's not popular.
How much does it cost for a skin cancer screening in Topeka? It depends? Well, that's a routine procedure that isn't really offered in the open market. It should just have published (and even advertised!) prices so normal consumers can shop around for quality screenings at fair prices.
I'm very critical of the American healthcare system, if that wasn't clear. But its failings are certainly not being too market based or too unregulated.