Maggie's Farm

Without advocating anything I've heard of in the way of socializing health care costs, let alone health care itself, the fact is that health care bills for catastrophic incidents -- serious injury, serious illness, terminal care -- are high and they can devastate a family's finances. The answer in any other industry would be competition to increase efficiency, then accept the increased cost as necessary to obtain the benefits of longer life or decreased pain or improved function.
Competition isn't much of a reality in healthcare. If you have a family doctor and you need a specialist's services, your family doctor is likely to recommend someone and you will almost certainly go there. In a large community, there may be some level of price competition among facilities but not much -- insurance fee schedules tend to eliminate it. In a small community, there may only be one significant clinic or hospital. Without serious competition, health care efficiency has very little drive.
Proof? Cosmetic care and laser vision correction. Both are primarily self pay and both have reduced their costs over the years. Does this apply across the medical industry? Maybe not. The development of effective chemotherapy is costly the medications themselves are costly to produce, and the training required to manage them is also costly. People staring down a life-threatening situation will go to great lengths and that seems only right.