even the US market has very extensive government intervention in it, so I don't think it's a valid comparison to say, US has free market health care and is expensive, while some other place has socialized medicine and is cheap. personally, I am not aware of any good examples of a thriving, free market health care system. it does seem to me that the health care market writ large is spectacularly dysfunctional, as are a handful of other sectors that also have significant government involvement, while many other parts of the economy seem to be miraculously efficient and competent by comparison.
The US has a market for private healthcare, but healthcare will never be a free market. It's the antithesis of a free market. Intrinsic inequality of bargaining power and information asymmetry are the biggest reasons for this.
This point is usually brought up in regards to healthcare emergencies. But emergencies only make up a small fraction of healthcare spending[1].
Maybe people have less bargaining power because of agreements with providers/insurers. That's a barrier to an effective market with price sensitivity, but it's a contingent one, not a mathematically inevitable one. For much of our healthcare spending the balance of bargaining power could look like it does for food.
