Because it's a business problem. The problem isn't that doctors don't know what to prescribe when you have an infection, it's that healthcare is so expensive that people can't afford it.
Price is way of measuring when it should be denied, because it has to be at some point. You can't spend the entire US GDP to save one life, even if it would work. At some price you have to say it's too expensive.
Then the question is, do you want to decide that amount for yourself, or have someone else deciding it for you?
if a law was passed requiring procedures to advertise the price like restaurants, it would solve most of the pricing issue. insurance systems obscure the price so the system doesn’t work.
Because its a scam to extract the maximum amount of wealth from people with no real choice options out.
And the ilusion, that in this stick-up of scenarios, the individual is to be able to engage in a free-market decision.
If you have some cold symptoms, you can't call around to find a doctor who will diagnose it for a reasonable price, because they won't give you one.
But that's not a stick up, it's a lack of price transparency. So how about we get a price transparency law?
The "stick up" scenario is limited to emergency care, and there is an argument that emergency services should be provided by the city for that reason. But most healthcare is not emergency services, nor would having your city do that require any kind of national policy -- you can go implement that right now.
It's the exact thing that works perfectly at the local level, because the stick up scenario itself is what prevents arbitrage. People in Houston can't vote to cut local emergency services and then go to the emergency room in Boston when they have a heart attack, because it's too far away.
Its more complex, to judge wether you are getting unnecessary procedures priced in, you would need to be a expert in the field. Its similar to enterprise software, where the customer often gets a "all-scenarios"included gigantic package - half of which he will never use.
Now add to that a field of experts, fused together by a lethal threat to their profession (lawsuits with expenses for life if you do damage) - forming a Wagonfort - and you get the perfect mess.