> Someone arrives in an ambulance near-death, if I lack morals then one level of maximized extraction price is to have those patients commit to pay a value that represents the earning potential for that person for the rest of their life. They have to agree before getting admitted.
Actual markets don't work that way. If you could actually make that much money then someone would open a competing emergency room right across the street, let everyone know that they charge $1 less and take all the business. Then the first emergency room would charge $2 less to take it back, until they're both charging reasonable prices.
It's the same reason you don't have to sign your life away to buy food even though you would die without it.
The problem in the US is that the regulations on the market for medical services work almost the exact opposite of that. There is no price transparency at all so you have no idea which facilities are more expensive. And if someone wants to open a competing facility, they have to get a Certificate of Need proving that the existing facilities don't have enough capacity. Even though having enough capacity doesn't preclude charging outrageous prices in the absence of competition.
> I see universal healthcare with a shared cost-pool as the lowest overhead way to provide for our social moral desires (but then I'm not in fear of the regulation with may be needed to implement that policy).
The existing US system is pure corruption. It's heavily regulated but the regulations are a result of regulatory capture by insurance companies (who want higher costs because higher costs means more vig), and all the industries the insurance money pays for like pharma.
The result is that medicine in the US is outrageously expensive. But the expense doesn't go away even with universal coverage unless you fix the regulations, and if you did that then people would be able to afford medicine out of pocket without insurance.