>It’s unclear to me why the American government doesn’t change the laws and create a new system more like a European one. There have been various attempts and

>It’s unclear to me why the American government doesn’t change the laws and create a new system more like a European one. There have been various attempts and proposals to change the system. An example of one attempt among many is called "Medicare for All Act": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_for_All_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_for_All_Act Scroll down that article to see that for the last 21 years of revisiting it by every legislative body, it always ends "Died in Committee". Every 2 years, some new representatives get elected, and yet it still dies. The proposal doesn't even make it out to the House floor to officially vote on. Why? A lot of vested interests in keeping the current system. (Aka "money".) The intuition is to think only the greedy health insurance companies are against it. But doctors' associations and many American workers with decent health insurance from their employers are against it too.