> Every other nation on earth somehow finds a way to deal with that.
well not every other nation, but i know what you mean.
other nations are much better at managing overutilization by denying care where it is not needed. the US insurance system shields people from cost and encourages overutilization due to a number of stupid policy choices (aka refusal to have 'death panels' like in Canada/UK but also refusal to do away with massive publicly subsidy for health expenditure).
for a personal story, my parents basically get free MRIs from the state for little reason whereas people I know have to pay an arm and a leg for MRIs because their insurance is worse. at minimum, we could at least also make my parents have to pay an arm and leg for useless MRIs and doctors would stop encouraging them or lose patients.
MRIs only cost that much in the US[0](2015 prices: $1,145 in America and $138 in Switzerland), everything is inexplicably ten fold more expensive here. That more expensive care doesn't result in ten fold better outcomes as all the health measures you can find indicate. That's the root of the problem and the thing is no politician[1] is really willing to address it and they don't really cover it clearly on the news[2], I wonder why?
[0]https://www.vox.com/2014/9/4/6104533/the-125-percent-solutio...
[1]https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries/summ...
[2]https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/hey-big-spenders-phar...