[robertlagrant]

> How come it's cheaper in places where everyone has insurance?

Those places don't have a hellish Frankenstein's monster combination of public and private and a load of regulations at the federal and state levels all adding up to high costs that have to be passed on to the consumer, but also weird niches of market inefficiencies that can be exploited by anyone who's managed to luck or judge their way into an advantageous position.

They also don't fund most of the world's healthcare advancements, which the US does.

They also cut off care at a certain point, whereas in the US you not only have access to most of the cutting edge treatments in the world that just aren't available on single payer systems, as they don't provide enough value, you also can find someone to pay to do it. You can bankrupt yourself on cutting edge treatments if you like.

I don't know what the answer is, other than "try again" and have a nice multi-insurer model, which I think one of the Scandies has, that just competes on efficiency and has its payouts and insurables defined by government, or maybe a single payer model. Or make healthcare a state-level problem and have each state solve it differently without federal overhead.

[sgerenser]

Providers also make a lot more money in the U.S. than in other countries. This encompasses much more than just doctors, but try running on a platform that’s seen as “cutting doctor salaries” and see how far it gets you.