Why is healthcare in America so expensive?

In 2016, the US government spent $3,2 trillion on healthcare, which is $9 per person or 900% of the country's total GDP. CNN.

Photo: IStock

America spends more on health care than most countries in the world. Only Switzerland, Luxembourg and Norway spend more on healthcare than the US. At the same time, in the ranking of the effectiveness of the health system from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States takes only 37th place. The top three in this ranking are France, Italy and San Marino.

According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, expensive medicine in the US is due to a distorted pricing system. Thus, drug prices in the United States are among the highest due to the fact that drug manufacturers set their own prices. In other countries, there is a regulatory body that monitors fair pricing.

In addition, the lion's share of funds goes to administrative costs. The medical billing system in America is too complicated. Their accrual and the work of insurance companies are not free, all this requires personnel and special software.

In other countries, doctors are more versatile than in America, and identify the problem faster.

Gupta also recalled the term "defensive medicine". It is a common practice in America for doctors to prescribe many additional tests, not to detect the disease, but to prevent possible litigation by patients and insurance companies in the event of a mistake.

Despite the overregulation and bureaucracy in the healthcare system, he said, American doctors are some of the most highly trained professionals in the world and can deal with very rare and difficult cases.

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