In an article published Tuesday in City Journal, Christopher Pope, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, explained why Americans are spending a lot of money on health care.
He wrote, “Americans’ average disposable income exceeds that of almost every other nation, as does their consumption of most goods and services. Health care is no exception.”
Bernie Sanders once said in his campaigns for the presidency, “In 2015, the United States spent almost $10,000 per person for health care. The Canadians, Germans, French, and British spent less than half of that, while guaranteeing health care to everyone. These countries have higher life expectancy rates and lower infant mortality rates than we do.”
In July 2019, Sanders joined a few diabetes patients as they crossed the border to buy cheap insulin from a Canadian pharmacy. He also talked about the federally negotiated prescription drug prices.
He said, “We should be doing what the Canadians do, and that means sitting down with the drug companies and negotiating a price.”
There have been recent developments in diagnostic, surgical, life-support, and pharmaceuticals, with increasing specialization in the medical field. These advancements have allowed diagnostics and procedures to be performed with greater precision, with better outcomes, speedy recovery times, and reduced risk of complications, which could be one of the reasons why Americans are spending a lot of money on healthcare.
Pope wrote, “For instance, the number of Americans having received a total hip replacement surged from 240,000 in 1980 to 2.5 million in 2010, while the number having received a knee replacement rose from 298,000 to 4.7 million.”
The United States healthcare market has seen a remarkable improvement in providing quality care.
The cost of prescription drugs is another major cause of concern in the United States. Americans are spending a lot on brand-name prescriptions drugs that are pretty expensive even though their generic versions are available in other countries at cheaper prices. People really need affordable generic drugs.
“The strength of American health care is that it has accommodated the desire of an affluent population for ever-greater access to path-breaking medical technology,” Pope wrote. “But the collective purchase of medical care by employers has meant that costs have often spiraled unaccountably and been imposed on all—many of whom may have less willingness or ability to pay.”
“Staff understandably resist effective cost controls being included in their health insurance benefits when savings will go to their employers, rather than to themselves,” he added.
Pope was a director of policy research at West Health, a nonprofit medical research organization. To know more about Pope’s insights on why people are spending so much on healthcare, visit City Journal, the nation’s premier urban-policy magazine.
