Of course, before we can fix it, we need to know what's wrong with it. The primary complaint seems to be that medical care is outrageously expensive. Can the federal government do anything about that? Actually, the federal government is doing something about it, and that's the problem.
Pardon a digression, but when I was an engineering student, we used punched cards and were billed for computer time. I asked one of my profs, who had been director of the university's computing center, whether the billing was just funny money. He explained that the university was paying for its computer with sponsored research funds, and that the federal government will not pay a discriminatory rate. So undergraduates' computer time did cost the university real money.
What's this got to do with health care? Well, Medicare and Medicaid pay for some people's health care, but pay the providers pretty much whatever they want. The one thing that providers can't do is to bill you and me less than they bill Uncle Sugar for the same service. For example, my mother-in-law, who's on Medicare, was recently hospitalized. One of her doctors billed Medicare $300 each for multiple "examinations" conducted in the middle of the night while my mother-in-law was asleep. Ignoring the obvious violation of ethics, it should be apparent that this particular doctor, and all other doctors in the area, must be billing all their patients (on Medicare or not) $300 for every examination. The feds won't let them gouge Medicare without gouging you and me alike.
There are two solutions to this problem, which are the same as the two solutions to the fundamental problem of economics. Either we can revert to a free market, in which people pay for their own medical care, or we can adopt a full-blown Stalinist system, in which the government pays for all health care but also controls the providers' compensation. Personally, I prefer the free market, and it's not just a matter of taste.
The example of eastern Europe should have taught us that socialism simply doesn't work. Any government interventions in the health care market are unconstitutional, and there's a good reason for that. A government that can manage your health care can also manage every other aspect of your life. It can tell you what to eat and drink. It can tell you whether you're allowed to marry, and if so, whom to marry. It can tell you whether you'll be allowed to have children, and if so, how many. Obviously, it will need to manage your finances as well.
Regrettably, the American sheeple foolishly believe that they can retain some semblance of freedom under a paternalistic government that provides all their needs. For the foreseeable future, we'll probably continue to get the government that they deserve.