This is why other goods you absolutely need, like clothes, shoes, and food, are ALSO some of the most expensive out there.
You can't get get a second hand operation or medicine.
You can even look at less regulated medication, like pet meds, and see how much cheaper some are. We don't need to go that far, just like how people food is more regulated than pet food, but without being as regulated as our current market for healthcare.
Much of medicine is vastly more complex than something like food safety or clothing safety.
No, because when your tooth hurts now, or you're bleeding now, or you need to get vaccinated to avoid you getting hepatitis, there's very little choice in the matter.
Healthcare is a fundamentally inelastic good. A dangerous one too, because bad quality healthcare can literally kill people. Inaccessibility of healthcare kills people too.
Look, there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. The US can look into any other developed country on the planet for inspiration. Every single one of them has a better, more accessible, cheaper for everyone involved, usually more or at least differently regulated, with better outcomes, model.
> No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
The vaccines are also a particular bad example. (The typical Now-lecture example is of emergency room care).
Food (despite recent inflation) is still very cheap in the grand scheme of things, despite it being something ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for survival.