[DubiousPusher]

We have measures that show Americans get less care per dollar. Not necessarily less care overall.

Regarding prices, yes insurance companies do negotiate prices to some extent but that has not controlled prices. See $20 asprin tablets given at many hospitals. There's a ton of reasons our private system has not done better controlling prices. It's hard to shop care. Insurers pass service costs onto employers who pay premiums who aren't consuming the care (the employee is). Medical companies find weird workarounds see medication couponing. I could go on. What it amounts to in the end is exactly rent seeking behavior, whatever the free market should be doing it is not. And there is no clear data that it is functioning more efficiently than a public system or at least a regulated market like Switzerland has.

In the end there's a reason that every developed country in the world other than America controls healthcare prices the same way. The government or a body backed by the government negotiates prices effectively fixing them.

Of course health insurance is a hard problem. No one ever said it wasn't.