America is a much larger country geographically as well.  This leads to issues.

That and the government just sucks at this stuff.

I wonder how much lawyers add to the overall cost of healthcare. Not just the ambulance chasers, but medical malpractise and drug liability cases.

I bet a lot of money could be solved with a settlement system with no lawyers.

America is so driven by making profits at all costs. USA IMO is one of the most greediest and corrupt countries on the face of the planet.
I am so lucky I do not live in the USA.

Yet the UK is our biggest ally... Lol.   You're so lucky man. 

Do Medicare/Medicaid have to pay full prices for the drugs?

Drugs are far more expensive in the States, due to there being no maximum price. The NHS (or a UK private health care company) doesn't have to spend as much on drugs as what a US health insurance company would thanks to maximum price legislature.

So, if Medicare/Medicaid do pay full prices on drugs, a maximum price legislature would bring costs down quite a bit.

Sam - I think they do pay full price.

Of course, we now have the wide, wonderful world of generic prescriptions, which are rapidly driving down costs.

What used to cost $50 per 30 day supply now costs $5. Free market economics

We are lucky you don't live here too.

mrstickball said: Sam - I think they do pay full price. Of course, we now have the wide, wonderful world of generic prescriptions, which are rapidly driving down costs. What used to cost $50 per 30 day supply now costs $5. Free market economics

This is exactly along the lines of what I was speaking of before.

Despite having multiple companies in every facet of health care, the principles of free economic capitalism do not exist for most fo it.

This brand name vs generic prescription example just illustrates how drastic the costs can be reduced when free market capitalism is allowed to work properly.

Other problems with the American health care system is actually over caring.   For some reason, Americans run to the emergency room for damn near everything.  Paper cut? Call an ambulance.   It's documented that we use our emergency rooms far more than any other nation AND for more frivilous purposes.  This is compounded by having the most follow ups (come back next week and we'll see how that paper cut is doing).   Another issue is no open wards.  Every patient is in a room with no more than 1 other patient; most are in private rooms.  It's also noted that every manner of personnel is paid higher than any other nation.  Let's not forget malpractice isurance for the doctors themselves.  That cost has skyrocketed the past decade.  On offshoot of this is the issuance of non-necessary tests and scans just to be extra thorough to avoid malpractice lawsuits.

The Regression Equation of GDP per capita and health care speing per capita suggest the US should be paying $4,819 (2006 figures) but we actually paid $6,714 (2006 figures) - way higher than any other developed nation.   What I noted above is the reasons why.

That is very interesting.  I would have guessed the opposite actually.

It can actually be worse than Viper1's example too ...

While paying hundreds of dollars to "Treat" people in the emergency room for non-emergency cases (or even nothing) is bad, its not that bad because it wasn't really that expensive and the patients are not worse off from the treatment.

Chronic back pain is one of the most common reasons why people visit a doctor and it is most often caused because of stress, muscle fatigue (often from an improper work environment), and a muscle-strenght imbalance (often from poor fitness). Back when the only diagonistic tool was the X-Ray doctors would look at the X-Ray see nothing physically wrong with the spine, give patients stretches/excercises and possibly give them a prescription for a mild pain-killer ... Today, with the MRI and what not, it is not uncommon for similar patients to have something "unusual" show up on a diagnostic test and get surgery performed on them even though nothing was wrong ... and in many cases their surgery results in them having worse back-pain even though the surgery was "successful"

When you're spending $10,000 to $20,000 to give paitents a worse result something is wrong.