Supply and demand doesn ' t really apply to healthcare in the same way it does to other markets . I could be misrembering the proper term but I believe it ' s considered an inelastic marketgood . People won ' t not get healthcare because the price is too high when the alternative is death . You already see this now , but even if you bumped the price for a lifesaving procedure up to some ridiculous number let ' s say $ 100 million people will still get it and then just declare bankruptcy . Also there ' s the fixable problem of many areas only really having one provider . It doesn ' t matter if there ' s a hospital 700 miles away that offers better care for cheaper , you can ' t really tell the ambulance to drive you 700 miles while you ' re having a heart attack . Hell , most people probably can ' t go that distance for any kind of medical care , urgent or not . That is why free market capitalism doesn ' t work with healthcare . Well that and if you turn away people that can ' t pay you suddenly have a surprisngly large ammount of dead people among the poor and working class .