> why would anyone ever fix it in a for-profit system?
For the same reason any other problem gets solved in a for-profit system; the best solver of problems will be the best getter of dollars. See for instance Apple, Honda, Nike, Harvard, etc.
Except that's not what's happening. There's a massive pile of patients who will try literally anything, they are a price and solution inelastic market, and like they say, there's a sucker born every minute. Except the sucker is a patient that isn't ever allowed, by this particular market, to get a refund for bad advice and procedures. You have to basically be injured by the doctor to have standing to sue.
The idea of health care as a product like a jug of milk is just ignorant, idealist, nonsense.
Counterpoint: hundreds of effective medical treatments for a variety of problems exist. Even in the joint pain market, compare today with 30 years ago. What would be career-ending injuries in the 80s are now resolved in time to return for next year. And these treatments are available to normal people too.
Well, let's say that medical ethics is a thing, and ethics in used-car sales is not. I'm attached to a medical school in a Southern state, and Trump was ahead in my neck of the woods with 2/3 of the vote, and it's taken seriously here by the physicians.
Apple kickstarted the smartphone market with one good product and went downhill from there in terms of making anything worth buying. Otherwise the only problem they're best at solving is marketing.
Apple actually supports the argument. Why innovate when you can make more profit removing functionality and releasing new colors while coasting on brand recognition?
A wilfully ignorant an elitist view of why people buy Apple products. A logical fallacy that anyone who makes a different decision to you is less intelligent than you.
For the same reason any other problem gets solved in a for-profit system; the best solver of problems will be the best getter of dollars. See for instance Apple, Honda, Nike, Harvard, etc.