This chart says it all. The medical-industrial complex and American policymakers should be ashamed. Hat tip Business Insider.
This post originally appeared at naked capitalism and is posted with permission.
6 Responses to “How Overpriced Is US Health Insurance?”
LCR • April 29th, 2012 at 11:07 pm
Yes, medicine is in a bubble in the US and only China and other emerging markets can save big pharma and ridiculous device company profits. The US technically subsidizes all other countries low prices by being gorged by pharma and device manufactures. There will be a huge deflation in United States medicine at some point, likely when medicare has to privatize the entire program due to government debt or once ACA is enacted. Poor med students debt bubble will get even larger.
JohnK • May 1st, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Not a fair comparison. A better denominator would be the average wage for the respective country. The doctor in New York will have higher overhead than a doctor in China due to higher rents, better paid nurses/staff, et al. Once we have the percentage of income allocated to healthcare premiums, then we could start to have a meaningful conversation. Until the data makes sense, this data is uninformative.
kiers • May 4th, 2012 at 11:04 am
the US will never get healthcare right. Doctors live too high on the food chain. They are the brahmins of society. yeah beware any industry which only touts the long hours they work (like investment banking), there’s a gouging waitin for you in those “long hours”.
health insurance ca • August 7th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
The national healthcare taxes on Obama care are going to be squashed long before they can be implemented.
Chris • October 21st, 2012 at 11:00 pm
I'm starting to think you may have a point there Kiers. Maybe the US should look at how insurance in other countries are handled to get an idea how to do things right. I heard philippine prudential life in particular was pretty good at what it does.
Thorton • November 20th, 2012 at 11:26 am
There should be health insurance for Americans that gives them emergency medical evacuation to a cheaper country.
