In the US, dental and vision care are much more business-like than healthcare in general. Prices are reasonable and care is quite advanced. If there was no protection racket, dentistry would be even cheaper.
Which isn't to say that running them as businesses is necessarily the right idea, but the regulatory morass that is broader US healthcare probably doesn't teach us everything there is to know about healthcare as a business.
(people get angry when you do things like call a $200 filling "cheap", but it lasts for 15+ years and you get to keep the tooth. It's cheap!)
Even in most universal healthcare countries dentistry and vision are only covered for minors, because they’re seen as care that can be budgeted ahead of time (you know a tooth is sensitive waayy before you actually have it filled, so you can save up for the cost). Dentists and opticians are run like businesses.
And yes, $200 is still ridiculously expensive for a filling. Here in The Netherlands I’d pay ~$104 for a multi-sided composite filling (the most complicated filling you can get). For the cheapest (one-sided amalgam) I’d pay ~$25. Local anesthesia would be ~$8.
Which isn't to say that running them as businesses is necessarily the right idea, but the regulatory morass that is broader US healthcare probably doesn't teach us everything there is to know about healthcare as a business.
(people get angry when you do things like call a $200 filling "cheap", but it lasts for 15+ years and you get to keep the tooth. It's cheap!)