there are 2 questions here:
1) why healthcare is so expensive
2) how to pay for it
for one, US spends more than others, but not astronomically (I recall 17% of GP v 12% for other OECD countries). This is not that bad. And other than Torah learning and defense, what else should country spend on? Even if some of that is waste, still it is an indicator that the country throws money at people’s health.
2) You can’t convince me that a fully socialized medicine does not create moral hazard – for not taking care of themselves and not working to cover expenses. When we show kids dental bills – they start brushing more often for a week or two. So, covering catastrophic cases and showing chesed – yes, but making it free-for-all – no. One less explored direction is to make capitalism work rather than trying to socialize it –
allow insurances compete across state lines
transparent pricing rather than secret bargaining between large groups. Under Trump, there was a new rule requiring hospitals to post their prices. I believe it went into affect at the early months of Biden, and that was the last time I heard about it. Not sure what happened.