[ianai]

I think America needs to get over its reverence for the "free market". Healthcare and education are critical needs. Without education we wouldn't have modern medicine, food supply, clothing, housing, etc - you name it. Without any and all healthcare we'd all be dying somewhere between 20-40, if we're lucky. Yet, both "industries" experience ever increasing costs. Consumers in both offset actualized needs with financial tools. Insurance only works if a large majority of people do not use it. That's if you can obtain and afford insurance. Education only pays off if your tuition expenses match up with your employment options. That's assuming you manage to find work out of college.

If you can't afford insurance then you're stuck paying out of pocket. By the "one price" rule, doctors have to charge an individual the same they charge insurance. An individual cannot strike a deal as easily with a provider as an insurance company can - so they wind up paying 10-100x what an insurance company would. Notice, that's not saying anything about what an insured person would pay.

There's no corollary to that for education. People finance their education (largely) with loans and up front. They're striking a deal based on what they expect their future income to be. That future income, by the way, probably won't be realized for the majority. For those it is, it may not be realized until 5 or even 10 years down the road. By that point, the loan payments have already started and may have already been scheduled to be paid back completely.

America needs a new economic model. It needs an economic model that allocates nails and food differently than it allocates healthcare and education. Right now, it allocates immediate needs the same way it allocates 'possible demands'. Financial companies estimate 'possible demands' on imperfect data across imperfect realities. Because those two things are not the same, they need to be handled differently.