I think there is genuinely a libertarian argument that healthcare is partly expensive due to government over-regulation. A lot of what you said also applies to

I think there is genuinely a libertarian argument that healthcare is partly expensive due to government over-regulation. A lot of what you said also applies to car mechanics. But they are less regulated, and there's unregulated alternatives, which makes things cheaper and more competitive. But since the US does have a high amount of government interference (apparently it's a big deal when a child dies, while a dodgy mechanic is something we just deal with), maybe it's best to just create a public system rather than a highly compromised hybrid with most of the cons of both public and private systems (the US actually has a higher tax burden due to healthcare than Canada, since the people who get it free on Medicare and Medicaid end up costing a fortune - the private sector can be way smarter than the government at the subsidies and incentives game).