To be fair, both Europe and Japan had the "advantage" of being almost completely destroyed before 1945. So they rebuilt pretty much everything from scratch. It is my understanding that this is the genesis of public healthcare for most/all of these countries. I get that we have an entrenched system, but that doesn't mean we can't un-trench it.

We already know that medical costs are made up. For example, just from my life, I had a surgery that was billed at over $150K. Insurance disallowed over $100K of that, paid something like $20K, and I had to pay about $5K (just flying from memory here...may be off by a couple of K). So the original charge was BS. The hospital (and doctors) got -at most- $30K for this. And the insurance company got the premiums, with which they paid the charge, plus CEO bonuses, and other overhead, plus a profit to report to shareholders. Government healthcare (like Medicare) skips all that nonsense because it is not-for-profit, and does not report to shareholders, or give executive bonuses.

I now have a script from all that. If I go the Walgreens with insurance route, I would pay about $140 for 90 days. Again, BS. CostPlus online charges me $35 for the same med, and that includes shipping.

If we cut out the BS, actual medical costs -based on my experience- is about 75% less than what they want to charge.

Also, note that people can still go to private practices in Europe...they have to pay out-of-pocket, but it is still available.