Why do you feel that aggregate cost is more relevant than cost to patient? If other systems are able to have the same outcome at more affordable rates for the average patient, isn't that better.
My analysis strongly suggests costs strongly track with income levels. Relative Prices rise with income, but purchasing power also rises, so it's not necessarily less affordable relative to incomes actually earned domestically.
Some people may prefer a regime that offers more insulation (socialization) from the true costs (generally overstated IMO), but that's something of a different problem with different potential solutions than the popular notion that US prices are inexplicably high or outcomes inexplicably bad where we're (presumably) likely to win-win-win if only we copy the regimes found elsewhere.
