Healthcare costs in the US are increasing due to extreme levels on inefficiency, misallocation of funds, and defensive medicine. Unfortunately, medicine is a business, and as time goes on it's being run more and more like a business. Between the excessively complicated insurance and reimbursement system, liability issues, and the ever-growing underserved population there is too much disorganization for the system to run efficiently. It needs to be simplified and streamlined. 

Unfortunately, capitalist notions of free-market competition don't work for health care. Instead of providing options and lowering costs for consumers as it is intended to, it instead adds yet another pressure to the system. Healthcare costs would be streamlined if we adopted a more unified and consist healthcare system focused on universal coverage, minimizing costs, maximizing efficiency, and cooperation.