"Competition" is often touted as a magical fix to market woes. But the thing is, health care isn't a free market and never really can be. Choice is central to a proper free market, and health care isn't really a choice. If Sony makes a crappy television for the price, I can get a Samsung. Or a laptop. Or a tennis racket. Or nothing. I can buy a competing product, an alternative entertainment product, or just buy nothing and play with myself instead. Wait, that came out wrong.
Anyway, health care isn't like this. There isn't really a competing product. I can't really shop around for a better price. Call any hospital and ask them how much for some procedure. You wont get a direct answer. And they certainly wont let on the fact that you'll get charged $3.50 for a cotton ball and $7 for a single tylenol pill. You also can't get a different procedure. (usually) Your hip that hurts constantly isn't solved by getting an appendectomy. And choosing not to get health care isn't an option sometimes. A life of pain, or death, isn't a choice.
Our wonderful free market has created a situation in which a replacement hip that costs $400 to manufacture gets billed out at $37,000. You did not read that wrong. And that's just for the implant. All said, you're over $100,000 in some cases.
And don't tell me it's because the market isn't free enough unless you're willing to tell me which regulation results in a 10,000% markup.