re: #249 Renaissance_Man

All true. The whole health care pricing system is a mess. Much of the pricing is indeed invented, and the only thing that manages to bend the pricing curve is Medicare and Medicaid since it has the sheer numbers behind it that private (profit or nonprofit) insurers can. One of the ACA provisions is to start getting costs out in the open, so people can see what things actually cost so they can compare an MRI at hospital A and B, and wonder why there’s a difference for the same exact procedure.

I get that there’s lots of innovation and drugs can cost more in the US because it’s what the drug companies will try to wring out before their patents expire, but excluding that, the costs for procedures is out of control too - where an appendectomy with no complications can cost X in France, but 3X in the States. Or an angiogram can cost Y in GB but 5Y in the US.

And the outcomes aren’t any better, and in some cases worse, than the Europeans or Canadian systems.