Comment by idle_zealot

The complaint seems to be that things like raspberry pies are cheap while nutritious food is expensive. The market optimizes for that consumers want without accounting for invisible costs like poor health outcomes from routinely eating calorie-dense nutrient-sparse food. Likewise affordability of healthcare is not optimized for in the US; the incentives in that market drive it towards high but subsidized prices. Someone who is well-employed benefits from health insurance that make prices reasonable-ish, but anyone not subsidized by their employer or government is effectively left out of the market. This is not a state of affairs where a free market will sort things out. In the food case, the prerequisite of rational agents in the marketplace is not met; people are bad at making good long-term health decisions and will vote with their dollars against their best interests. In the healthcare case the real transaction is not happening between the consumer and healthcare provider, but between the provider and employers or governments and no party has incentives to change this (except maybe the government following the will of the people). This relationship provides employers a way to attract and retain talent and makes a lot of money for providers.