The only way healthcare costs go down is through capitalism. Lasik eye surgery used to be $15k per eye and wasn't covered by medical insurance. Over the years, supply/demand has brought the cost down substantially.

The problem with the current model is that there's not a true supply/demand. We don't get to shop around for the doctors with the best service, best prices, lowest wait times, etc. We don't get to shop around for the best prices on medications. We just have to go wherever our insurance tells us to go aka "network provider/pharmacy/etc". Or we go where the government tells us to go if we're on medicaid. To win in this type system, you don't have to play nice with the patients but you get rewarded for bending backwards for the insurance company and the government.

Until healthcare truly comes back to supply/demand economics then it won't get fixed and it won't get cheaper. We should be paying out of pocket for medical expenses, we should be able to shop around and go wherever we see fit, and we should have catastrophic health coverage in the event that something major happens. This is the only fix I can see, get the government out of the healthcare business....