> one where medicare prices are the set prices for everything, but that is nearly a political impossibility given the amount that these middlemen spend in keeping politicians who support that from winning primaries.
You're missing the part where the Stated and objective goal of popular politicians from one party is not to let that happen.
They don't get elected because someone scheming to control their funding (though that is a proximal cause of Republican candidates getting more extreme: Align with MAGA or get primaried)
They get elected because a huge portion of the USA are divorced from reality and utterly deny said reality. They say "government is less efficient" as we sit on top of this atrocious system, a system where we already have the government version and it's radically cheaper and we could literally just sign up everyone for that, save everyone time, money, and headache, and then improve service quality.
These people deny that nearly all developed countries and lots of undeveloped countries have vastly better healthcare outcomes than the USA, extremely better healthcare access, and pay way way less overall, taxes included.
These people just consume propaganda, and purposely refuse to engage with any clear or obvious evidence that contradicts said propaganda.