Is there a legitimately good reason for all those treatments to be so expensive, or is that, to a large degree, capitalism extracting capital from the market? Why is American insulin so expensive when compared to that from other countries?
We can't really know, since only free markets can determine the price of a good or service (it's driven by supply and demand) and health care market is tightly regulated.
> Why is American insulin
Because of the regulatory barriers not allowing other providers to enter and sell insulin on the US market.