What are the factors? Number one is that doctors in the US are paid too much. Why is this? Because health insurance is purchased by employers, not individuals, so most people don't see or care how much it costs. This also explains number two - the price gouging by pharmaceutical companies and hospitals.
People will try to say it's because of malpractice insurance or because the US invents all the drugs (they don't) and bla bla and while those are contributing factors, it's very clear to me as a UK expat that key players in the medical system here just take too much money off people.
A simple example is that Paracetemol (Tylenol), available since the 1950s costs about 10x as much in my local CVS as it would in an equivalent British pharmacy (Boots). Why? Because the US market is already used to paying far too much so they have no idea what a rip off is.
Mostly agree but I think you misrepresent this argument:
>People will try to say it's because of malpractice insurance or because the US invents all the drugs (they don't)
It's not that the US invents all the drugs, but that US customers bear a disproportionate share of the drug development costs because drug makers (whichever country they originate in) can actually charge above marginal price in the US, compared to the monopsonist discount that other countries can secure.
People will try to say it's because of malpractice insurance or because the US invents all the drugs (they don't) and bla bla and while those are contributing factors, it's very clear to me as a UK expat that key players in the medical system here just take too much money off people.
A simple example is that Paracetemol (Tylenol), available since the 1950s costs about 10x as much in my local CVS as it would in an equivalent British pharmacy (Boots). Why? Because the US market is already used to paying far too much so they have no idea what a rip off is.