Is US health care more expensive because we have higher costs of provision, or is it simply that providers charge higher prices? Blogging wunderkind Ezra Klein at the WaPo gives us some insight into what appear to be exorbitant US prices. He also provides a link to the full pack of charts with the international price comparisons. Yowza.
I can think of reasons why the US might have higher costs and hence higher prices. For example, I’m told that Allegheny County in Pennsylvania has as many medical helicopters at the ready as the entire country of Canada. I will not stake my name on whether that is true or not, but it certainly could be the case that higher average costs lead to higher prices, even with robust competition. There are also arguments of waste, fraud, abuse, exorbitant overhead, what have you that could also contribute.
On the other hand, maybe it’s (just) the prices, stupid.