Disagree. Services compete all the time, and most healthcare procedures are not life-and-death emergencies. The problem really is that the customer of healthcare in the US is not the entity paying for the service, and hospitals have a huge incentive to price their services differently to individuals than to insurance companies and not to price services transparently.
There was a time in the past when US healthcare was not considered costly. That era (before the 1970s) was different in three ways:
1. Most people paid for healthcare out of their own pocket.
2. Most healthcare providers were non-profit (hospitals) or small businesses (independent doctors' offices).
3. Prices for services rendered were the same for every customer of a given provider and available in advance.
I think this is missing the point.There was a time where health care costs for German, British or any other citizen of countries with single payer healthcare were reasonable, without any of your 3 points (ok,maybe number 3).
Germany (like every OECD country but the US) has universal healthcare but not (along with several other non-US OECD countries) single-payer healthcare. US reform advocates often confuse the two.
True, I was imprecise
Though I feel like the laws and incentives our Germany closer to the single payer end of the spectrum, contrasting with Switzerland which also has universal healthcare but different incentive structures, which lead to them being #2 in health care costs
I'm not suggesting single-payer can't work. One existence proof that it can is right here in the US with Medicare and the VA. I'm suggesting that the invisible hand of the market can work too, because it has in the past. What we have now is neither single-payer nor market-based capitalism.
Medicare (because of the existence of Medicare Advantage) is not single-payer (or even single-payer of first resort with optional supplemental coverage), it's more like Obamacare with an added default public option.
Was the effect comparable using our current values though (assuming somewhat equal access to healthcare is a value we share). Is there data how the era you claim to be working well dealt with chronic diseases, Terminal diseases or how lower and middle class faired healthwise compared to upper class?
Back before the 1970s US healthcare was not considered costly because it couldn't do much. The number of expensive treatments and medications for people with chronic conditions, serious diseases, and trauma has exploded since then.
That's certainly true; I just don't think it's a major factor in high healthcare costs. Many other aspects of modern life (mobile phones for just one example) have also seen an explosion in capability, yet costs have decreased because the marketplace was competitive.
Comparison to consumer electronics is a total non sequitur. Why would you think that's even remotely comparable? Healthcare delivery mostly isn't scalable and suffers from Baumol's cost disease.
There was a time in the past when US healthcare was not considered costly. That era (before the 1970s) was different in three ways:
1. Most people paid for healthcare out of their own pocket.
2. Most healthcare providers were non-profit (hospitals) or small businesses (independent doctors' offices).
3. Prices for services rendered were the same for every customer of a given provider and available in advance.