Regarding (A) and (C), this is the obligatory reminder that:
* The US spends more public money on health care, per capita, than other wealthy nations, while also spending much much more private money than other wealthy nations
* By many measures, the US gets worse outcomes (e.g. life expectancy)
The conclusion that many draw from this is that perhaps a single-payer health care system in the US could dramatically lower private spending, also lower public spending, and perhaps improve outcomes. I don't personally know if that follows, but it's not implausible.
This is counter-intuitive to many, thus comments like your (A) through (C) are common, but might not be correct.
That said, I'm not aware of evidence that your (B) is wrong. That might be part of the trade-off.
As a non-American from America's hat, who has had a few (bigco-insurance-funded) run-ins with US Healthcare, my observations were that
* emergency health care at the no-expenses-spared level in the US was nicer than emergency healthcare up here, and I wouldn't want to pit my doctors vs those US doctors in a quality competition
* US doctors seemed really eager to waste money, like really eager, like it was creepy
> US doctors seemed really eager to waste money, like really eager, like it was creepy
Your last point is purely a function of the liability culture in the states. US physicians are quite aware of what's appropriate and what's inappropriate testing wise. However, as long as a physician can be held personally liable for any oversight - meaning that the results of an entire career can be lost - they're going to over-test.
Purely a function of liability culture? That seems like an extraordinary claim, your claim that there are no other causes. Do you have extraordinary evidence?
I'll note that I do have a few different bits of modest evidence to the contrary. But I wanted to focus my comment on concrete observations (both the large-scale statistical kind, and the personal anecdotal kind), rather than on speculation.
Maybe because the 2/3rds of the population is overweight or obese. It's like the education system in the US, you can spend all the money you want but if the participants aren't actively trying to improve...
* The US spends more public money on health care, per capita, than other wealthy nations, while also spending much much more private money than other wealthy nations
* By many measures, the US gets worse outcomes (e.g. life expectancy)
The conclusion that many draw from this is that perhaps a single-payer health care system in the US could dramatically lower private spending, also lower public spending, and perhaps improve outcomes. I don't personally know if that follows, but it's not implausible.
This is counter-intuitive to many, thus comments like your (A) through (C) are common, but might not be correct.
That said, I'm not aware of evidence that your (B) is wrong. That might be part of the trade-off.
As a non-American from America's hat, who has had a few (bigco-insurance-funded) run-ins with US Healthcare, my observations were that
* emergency health care at the no-expenses-spared level in the US was nicer than emergency healthcare up here, and I wouldn't want to pit my doctors vs those US doctors in a quality competition
* US doctors seemed really eager to waste money, like really eager, like it was creepy