Here is an interesting article about health costs in the US compared to health costs worldwide:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/high-health-care-costs-its-all-in-the-pricing/2012/02/28/gIQAtbhimR_story.htmlIts long so here are some of the highlights:
1. The US pays much much more for everything. A day in hospital is 4 times the cost in the US as opposed to Switzerland, which is the next most expensive.
In 2009, Americans spent $7,960 per person on health care. Our neighbors in Canada spent $4,808. The Germans spent $4,218. The French, $3,978.
2. If the US could get to Swiss levels, and Switzerland is ridiculously expensive as well, but if the US could get to Swiss cost levels, the federal deficit would be eliminated.
If we had the per person costs of any of those countries, America’s deficits would vanish. Workers would have much more money in their pockets. Our economy would grow more quickly, as our exports would be more competitive.
3. The well run system have their government set prices for drugs. The US does not.
In America, Medicare and Medicaid negotiate prices on behalf of their tens of millions of members and, not coincidentally, purchase care at a substantial markdown from the commercial average. But outside that, it’s a free-for-all. Providers largely charge what they can get away with, often offering different prices to different insurers, and an even higher price to the uninsured.
4. Individual Americans are victims of price gouging. Passed out sick? Pay extra!!!
Health care is an unusual product in that it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, for the customer to say “no.” In certain cases, the customer is passed out, or otherwise incapable of making decisions about her care, and the decisions are made by providers whose mandate is, correctly, to save lives rather than money.
5. Obamacare is not going to fix this. I find the following hard to believe but WaPo can hardly have made it up:
In the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, for instance, Congress expressly barred Medicare from negotiating the prices of drugs that it was paying for.
6. American health care professionals don't see any problem with this and insist government should not regulate prices. Classic
rentier mentality:
“There is so much inefficiency in our system, that there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit we can deal with before we get into regulating people’s prices.” says Len Nichols, director of the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics at George Mason University.
7. This price gouging applies to the the full spectrum of procedures:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/high-cost-of-medical-procedures-in-the-us/?hpid=z2For an illustration of this in practice, here is a woman who had similiar treatments in US and UK. Look at the price difference...US charged $103,322 while UK charged $4750.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2105680/This-woman-emergency-op-Americas-hospital-stars-NHS-So-did-best-care.htmlAnyone advocating a free market in health should take a long hard look at these figures. Its clear that having the government negotiating prices with drug firms and trade unions is far more efficient than having every sick person competing through insurance companies with every other sick person.
And its also clear that the US budget deficit is not due to some generic failure of government. Its a failure due to the private market in health care. Fix that and your federal deficit goes away overnight.
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