Very, VERY simplistic article, IMHO. Prices are but one aspect of total health care costs. And article largely misses exploring those reasons WHY prices are higher in US-
1. Wages generally are higher. Wages are >60% of US HC costs.
2. Equipment/medication costs are higher. Same MRI scanner costs more in US than France or India.
3. Liability costs. Insurance overhead is MUCH higher in US for suppliers/hospitals/docs/etc.
4. Poor price negotiating procedures- partly by dictated by patchwork of fed & state laws & regulations
And despite the article's erroneous claim, overutilization of expensive technologies IS a major factor in excess US costs. The single study they quote is contradicted by much better & more current data. Contrary to Post's misquote of his opinions, Uwe Reinhardt repeatedly illustrates overutilization in many of his articles on healthcare cost issues. US spends FAR more on care in last 30days of life pursuing fruitless heroic efforts. And just try getting though a US ER visit without a big battery of tests that would make a German or UK doc embarrassed to think about. Why? The US ER doc gets sued if he/she does not do those tests or procedures & there's less than perfect outcome. In US, value-based healthcare decisions are NOT a defense in individual malpractice actions. Doc cannot use exorbitant price of test (or medication, etc.) as solid defense in liability claim. As but one example, OB docs are under big pressure to limit the C-Section rate despite fact that in many cases this remains an area of very imperfect science. Yet doc's failure to perform a C-Sec has led to some HUGE malpractice awards like this $US144 million one recently in Michigan-
Jury awards $144 million for failure to perform a C-section
BTW- The Post is wrong in claiming insurers are but a small part of this. Only 2.2% profit margin
Check the published financial facts. United Health Care's return on equity is 19%, and Wellpoint's ROE is over 11%. Other big players are not far behind.
Yes the profit motive is present in US market, but it's also there in some other developed nations like Germany & Japan. Just somewhat bigger issue in US. But even if one could magically eliminate Post's estimated 20% profit overhead, US would STILL have huge HC cost problems vs rest of developed world. That MRI would still cost over 3-fold what is would in France.