Graphs that show America’s health-care prices are ludicrous
Another way to look at this is that the US is subsidizing the world's healthcare. Take the example of drugs in the linked article [1]. Given their pricing power in the environment, the article asserts that we pay 2x what other countries do for identical drugs, for no other reason than we aren't negotiating as a large group. As an anecdotal example, when visiting Beijing, I had some trouble breathing, so I went to a pharmacy to buy an inhaler. I didn't have insurance that worked in China, so I had to pay out of pocket. Not only did I not need a prescription, but I also only paid $4 for the inhaler, complete with medicine. The same inhaler + medicine costs $10 with insurance in the US (god knows how much without it).<p>Tom Sackville, a UK politician quoted in [1] summed it up nicely: "We end up with the benefits of your investment. You’re subsidizing the rest of the world by doing the front-end research."<p>[1] <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/why-an-mri-costs-1080-in-america-and-280-in-france/2011/08/25/gIQAVHztoR_blog.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/why-an-mri...</a>