💯 The cause of high prices was never the market itself. It was the distortion of that market by incentivizing both employers and employees with tax-exemptions so employers could offer cheaper than otherwise available healthcare insurance as part of their employees' compensation - effectively removing the agency of the individual employees from the healthcare insurance market.
One-size-fits-all plans, obscured healthcare pricing, etc. (and thus, ever-escalating prices) are all downstream from this lack of individual agency in the market.