we can both complain about the final outcome and disagree on how we got here. I think it's a stretch to call healthcare an efficient market. There are huge upfront and switching costs for almost every component making it rife with opportunities (intentional) and mistakes (mistakes) that erode efficiency. I also feel you conflate what markets can do with what their intent is. You seem to imply that markets have no role in a huge swath of our economy and lives, yet I look at my medical experiences in Canada (almost 100% public) and wonder if many people actually know how it works and what the outcomes look like. In a nutshell it's both harder to die and harder to get better under our system, and I think markets could help with the later without hurting the former.