The high health care cost is due to a lot of unnecessary procedures being performed. This can happen in two ways. First, there are a lot of tests and procedure

The high health care cost is due to a lot of unnecessary procedures being performed. This can happen in two ways. First, there are a lot of tests and procedures ordered by doctors that only have some, but very small, benefits for the patients [0]. Doctors are incentivized to do this because each procedure has a set price (negotiated with insurance companies and Medicare / Medicaid) and the only way to get more revenue is to perform more procedures. Second, patients themselves order a lot of procedures out of fear. Arguably, they can be better off without these procedures. A prime example is end-of-life care, where patients and families often want to "do everything possible" even if those intrusive medical procedures bring nothing but a few weeks of miserable living [1]. Those end-of-life procedures are extremely expensive while having questionable benefits in terms of bringing a "happy" life rather than just a longer life [2]. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unnecessary-tests-and-treatment-explain-why-health-care-costs-so-much/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unnecessary-tests... [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/03/05/286126451/living-wills-are-the-talk-of-the-town-in-la-crosse-wis https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/03/05/286126451/livi... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Illness-Medicine-Matters/dp/1250081246 https://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Illness-Medicine-Matters...