Originally Posted By: Kerryman
Jack M - you mentioned the WHO - sure, integrate insurance costs and taxes, but the REAL figures are buried in the indirect supports. R & D grants subsidize a lot, sweet deals on medication do the same. The pricing structures of medication from country to country are impossible to analize e.g. Ibuprofen is about $10 for a small pack here, whereas it could buy me a container of 250 in the US. If the drugs are generic it is even cheaper.

The WHO data are all we have to go by, and if not precise, they're close enough. The fact that the US pays more and gets less in health care than any OECD or EU country is undeniable.

Steve L., don't waste your breath on capitalism, free markets and competition, when the FDA protects Big Pharma profits by preventing Americans from buying Rx drugs at open world market prices! American citizens pay much more for the same Rx drugs that the rest of the world enjoys because of government intervention paid for by corporate lobbyists. The FDA has actually confiscated needed prescription drugs from senior citizens who bought those drugs in Canada (at much lower prices than the identical drugs sold in your local pharmacy).

Yes, you can find horror stories in any health care system, ours included (i.e., the girl who died after Cigna denied $$ for a liver transplant despite the unanimous pleas of her medical team). But ours is the only major country where people are confronted with ruinous medical bills, or are afraid to change jobs for fear of losing medical coverage. As long as insurers can profit more by denying coverage, our health care suffers.

Socialized medicine is like our socialized public schools or our socialized police protection - maybe not perfect, but a helluva lot better than nothing. And like schools and police protection, socialized medicine still allows those who can afford it to upgrade through private sources.

Sample my new book at http://www.theweemadroad.com