Not a health care economist, but I would be highly surprised if there were any single policy that could serve as a panacea.

The vast majority of health care dollars go towards the elderly, who simply have less life left and benefit less from a new hip than a 40 year old would (not to mention Medicare being the largest long term driver of our future budget deficit). While death panels and taking granny off the machine may be potent catch phrases, the fact is that we need better rationing of care for the elderly; care of the elderly isn't the sole purpose of the health care system, or for that matter of the government in 15 years.

A system where your employer pays for your health insurance, which pays for your health care, is absurdly inefficient in myriad ways (creates artificial barriers to moving jobs, employers won't have the same incentives as you, etc.). The fact that we allow this is weird; the fact that we subsidize it with tax breaks that don't apply to people who buy their own insurance is unconscionable.

Allowing competition across state lines (and reducing barriers to entry for medical professionals who have to apply for separate licenses in each state) might help. So might letting nurse practitioners and physician's assistants have more autonomy over basic tasks that don't necessarily need an expensive MD supervising. But I would be surprised if those were cure alls. People used to say that the key driver of health care costs was unnecessary tests caused by "defensive medicine" from doctors scared of lawsuits and that tort reform would end this, but the empirical evidence when this happened in Texas is weak. People used to say that more access to relatively cheap primary and preventative care could prevent more expensive ER trips; when this was tried via RCT in Oregon, health outcomes improved, but costs went up. So I would be very suspicious when someone says one policy is all we need. But by all means, let's try everything.