On a per capita basis, we don't fare any better. Canada, for example, devotes 10.8% of GDP to health care, or $5,630 on average. The per capita cost of health-care in the UK, with its "socialist" National Health Service, is $3,609. In South Korea with a higher life expectancy than we have, it's only $1,616. In the United States the figure is a budget-busting $8,608.
The American health care system IS NOT A FREE MARKET.
There's no such thing as a free market and the exorbitant price of health care in the US is a glaring example. "In reality, per-capita state-sponsored health expenditures in the United States are the third-highest in the world , only below Norway and Luxembourg. And this is before our new health law kicks in." The quote is from an article in The Atlantic (March 8, 2012). The title speaks volumes: "The Myth of the Free-Market American Health Care System." As the author a libertarian journalist named, Megan McArdle, points out:
The thing to remember in America is that we have single-payer health care for the elderly and for the poor: the two costliest groups. In addition, the relatively healthy middle class has heavily-subsidized private health insurance, in which few individuals have the freedom to choose the insurance plan they receive. Neither of these facts commend the American health-care system to devotees of the free market.
McArdle is manifestly NOT a proponent of state-financed health insurance. She points out that two of the world's best health-care systems are found in Switzerland and Singapore. Both are essentially market-based systems, but the Swiss get subsidies (on a sliding scale tied to income) to purchase health insurance and Singapore has a system of mandatory health savings accounts. But note that in both countries, coverage costs far less than in American, health care efficiency and life expectancy are higher, and coverage is UNIVERSAL.
Prescription drug prices in the US are the HIGHEST IN THE WORLD.
Pharmaceuticals cost far less in most countries than they do in the US; most prescription drugs patented, manufactured, and sold here in the United States are sold abroad at much, much lower prices. Here are a few facts about prices for 200 of the world's best selling drugs across 13 therapeutic areas:
- Fact: European prescription drug prices average just 50% of U.S. prices.
- Fact: Japanese drug prices average 66% of U.S. prices.
- Fact: In price-comparison studies weighted for volume, brand-name prescription drug prices are often higher in the US than other OECD countries; a US government study found that patented drug prices cost 18-67% less in OECD countries than in the U.S.
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