Comment by vidarh

In most of the world, private treatment is far cheaper than equivalent private treatments in the US. To the point where even to a high cost location like London, it can be cheaper to fly to London from the US to have things done at a high end private hospital.

Medicare+Medicaid in the US costs about the same person taxpayer as NHS costs per UK taxpayer. The NHS could be better, but we get universal care for a similar price than what leaves most Americans still needing private care to have any cover at all.

That strongly suggests that the US could at a minimum do far better at providing cost effective care - both public and private.