Because everything changes, and the costs on paper are lower than they seems:

(The quote box)

@sɪᴅɪsɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴇ No, I already mentioned how the US actually doesn’t have significantly more health problems so that’s not the cause of it, and even if you consider incomes the US still comes out far ahead. The US only has a marginally higher income yet per capita healthcare spending is double

*compared to the UK

Ok, so first of the US has the highest obesity in the world, much higher than the developed world. It also has a very large disease burden compared to other countries, meaning spending is higher.

> The US only has a marginally higher income yet per capita healthcare spending is double
The US' GDP per capita PPP is roughly 68k - much higher than the other countries and UK. So this explains a significant part of the spending per capita.

These two factors don't explain all of the high spending, like I said regulations is one of the main reasons why spending is higher (as prices are higher).

@sɪᴅɪsɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴇ Nope, with the study I sent earlier, the US actually has lower physcian visits

https://international.commonwealthfund.org/stats/annual_physician_visits/

Physician visits =/= healthiness.

Americans don't go to the doctor *as much* due to cost; low labor supply of physicians (regulations have caused this)

But yeah, the US' high income pretty much is one of the driving reasons

Since you keep bitching about PPP

https://medium.com/@GregCampNC/enlightened-self-interest-and-the-healthcare-debate-20ef0d94b032

Yes the reasons for the large spending:
1. High income
2. Obesity and disease burden
3. High regulatory burdens and intervention

If we didn't have the top 2 spending would be lower, but not having the top is stupid (of course).

https://www.vox.com/a/health-prices

It’s not due to that it’s overspending on mainly prescription drugs and admin

And as I’ve shown with the amount of annual physican visits, America isn’t uniquely sick

And with the other article I sent that accounted for PPP, America still spent way more

And how would no intervention make it any cheaper

> Physician visits =/= healthiness.
> Americans don't go to the doctor as much due to cost; low labor supply of physicians (regulations have caused this)

> It’s not due to that it’s overspending on mainly prescription drugs and admin
Not all of it, much of it can be accounted for by the 2 factors I mentioned. The same goes for drugs too, an unhealthy population spends more on drugs.
> And with the other article I sent that accounted for PPP, America still spent way more
Yes I've been using PPP this whole time.

> And how would no intervention make it any cheaper
Regulations that were restricting supply no longer are, so prices fall.

Y’all are still on about this

Yeah but it's changed

@sɪᴅɪsɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴇ Healtcare is one of the markets where you NEED to have intervention. There are exceptions obviously but let’s say you have a heart attack, or any other traumatic medical incident. The principles of choice in the free market don’t apply. You can’t and don’t choose your hospital, you just go to the closest one and hope. And even when you are conscious when you need to go to the hospital you’ll typically go to the closest hospital. Healthcare is one of the few industries where you can’t choose. Not to mention there is literally no transparency about prices in American hospitals so yet again free market principles of choice can’t apply. It is because of this inherent lack of choice in most scenarios that you need gov intervention.

These are fringe cases Thememelord, in most cases consumers are free to choose where they get care before and after.

Most of the time it's people walking in, not arriving on a death bed.

Well regardless of the frequency you can’t apply the free market to a life and death scenario where people more often then not can’t choose

And even if they are fringe you can’t deny their existence because they will always happen because that is part of healthcarw

@sɪᴅɪsɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴇ And you can’t dent that even when you account for PPP the US spends significantly more

By fringe cases, that means it's very rare. Naturally the price of someone coming in dying will be low since the non-rare cases (i.e not a heart attack in an emergecy) will have low prices too.

> And you can’t dent that even when you account for PPP the US spends significantly more
I didn't, I was just talking in terms of PPP. I.e the differences in prices across countries.

@sɪᴅɪsɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴇ No, the whole reason the free market works is through choice. That allows competition. In healthcare this principle more often then not can’t apply because when you need medical assistance you go to the closest hospital as fast as possible regardless of cost

Not to mention practically no hospitals release their prices

Rare cases have the same prices as normal cases, as normal cases are the vast majority.

> Not to mention practically no hospitals release their prices
Not *now*, because the current system (due to regulations) disincentives it.

My argument about a free market system is less about competition, but more of the costly burdens raising prices.

@sɪᴅɪsɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴇ Actually I mispoke, I think it was a law or executive order by Trump but now hospitals are required to post their prices. Because they wouldn’t tell anyone their sky high prices until they got the check. Notice that only through intervention, your idea of a free market could work

I'm not for that regulation, naturally prices would be transparent if we did not have the insurance based system we did now. Insurance is only for tragic and unforeseen events - other than that it's out of pocket payments.

@sɪᴅɪsɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴇ If you go to a hospital in an emergency and you have no clue what you’ll be charged, how do you know it’ll be the same price

Depends, what do you go for?

A broken bone?