1/3 of US medical spending could be avoided by moving to an efficient single payer system.
But, a lost of ‘waste’ is diminishing returns where there’s some benefit to the procedures preformed. It’s easy to say paying 1 million for an extra week is a poor investment, until it’s you making that decision for a loved one.
Paying 1m/week is objectively a waste when you're refusing to pay 100k for a year, though. Healthcare is paid through insurance, so there's real meat to the loved one distinction - you're not actually making that decision for your loved ones in 99.9% of cases even in the US.
You pay for healthcare in -any- system, even a completely communist/socialist system. Healthcare costs resources which much be allocated to a greater or lesser extent.
Problem with the US system is WHOM do you pay. Ultimately, to a degree perhaps greater than almost any other nation - you're paying quite a lot to stock holders, both public and private, stock holders of insurance, stock holders of pharma companies, stock holders of pharmacy companies, stock holders of EMR software (private company, Epic), and I'm sure, many other for-profit companies. Hospitals tend to be the only technically not for profits in the equation, as well as healthcare groups, but even then these groups tend to operate in a for-profit manner in service of ambitions of regional growth
