The other option is to have the government have a larger control, either by government run insurance, or by government run healthcare. There are numerous examples of either in the world that are both more effective by healthcare metrics and lower price than the current U.S. system.
To be brutal about this: we in the U.S. demonstrably pay more per person that the rest of the "developed" world, and we get worse outcomes for it, and that is not even counting that we exclude a good portion of our population (which other countries do not).
The only place the U.S. excels is at the very top of healthcare, the part that 1% of our population will ever see. We pay the top doctors the top dollar, so they come here, where they charge uber-top-dollar. At one point a lot of this was going to fund new drugs and clinical methods, which quickly filtered down to help everyone. But at this point those filter-downs are few and far between, and it is simply going to those who have the most money, or are the most visible.
> we in the U.S. demonstrably pay more per person that the rest of the "developed" world
It's possible both of these can be true. Government ownership increases prices and we happen to be towards the worst end of the spectrum in terms of real overhead by such a system.
To be brutal about this: we in the U.S. demonstrably pay more per person that the rest of the "developed" world, and we get worse outcomes for it, and that is not even counting that we exclude a good portion of our population (which other countries do not).
The only place the U.S. excels is at the very top of healthcare, the part that 1% of our population will ever see. We pay the top doctors the top dollar, so they come here, where they charge uber-top-dollar. At one point a lot of this was going to fund new drugs and clinical methods, which quickly filtered down to help everyone. But at this point those filter-downs are few and far between, and it is simply going to those who have the most money, or are the most visible.