IT is beyond our control because we have setup a system where the people who are paying don't want to control things.
My boss wants insurance to be expensive - if I could afford it I would be more willing to quit (retire early).
Finding cheaper services isn't in my interest - I'm not paying any bills anyway.
Insurance companies like the complexity because it means I can't understand the system and so I have to use them.
Doctors don't really care as they just have administrators play the game for them. Once in a while they look at the game and say something, but really this is just they don't understand how the game is played (they shouldn't - they are doctors, they should be looking at medical issues not administrative ones).
Doctors have also spent a lot of time lobbying to make becoming a doctor harder so that the fewer doctors will be able to command better salaries. It sounds like they are attempting to reverse that and open up more spots for residencies but I imagine that there is a lot of momentum to overcome.
There's an old mechanics saying "if X was covered by insurance it'd cost what Y does" where X is some routine thing (tires/brakes/etc) and Y is autobody or glass services typically covered by insurance.
This proverb seems to also apply to health insurance and the things they do/don't cover.
Putting routine stuff under the purview of insurance is stupid regardless of context. There are other cheaper, faster, simpler and more transparent ways of doing that.
Other countries are making efforts to keep things in check though https://www.npr.org/2025/01/04/nx-s1-5246231/potential-fraud.... The US for some reason can’t even address blatant fraud. One example is the stuff insurers do with Medicare Advantage. There is fraud and Congress knows about it but besides some hearings nothing is happening.
And having lived 10 years in Canada and 10 years in the US and used both their healthcare systems quite a bit, I have seen both sides. Let me just say I moved to the US for healthcare 10 years ago and we do not regret it one bit. The US is easy to point and laugh at, but that just comes from ignorance.
Many medical administrations do everything they can to upcode in order to bill for more money.
The whole system is a mess.