21 graphs that show America’s health-care prices are ludicrous

[greenforest32]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/26/21-graphs-that-show-americas-health-care-prices-are-ludicrous/

[TNF]

This is what happens when you don't have price controls.

[Ebowed]

This is what happens when you don't have price controls.

But.. but.. if you don't give people a monetary incentive to do good things, then there will be nobody to do them!  Imagine a society without doctors!

Meanwhile, teachers deserve to be paid nothing...

[Franzl]

This is what happens when you don't have price controls.

But.. but.. if you don't give people a monetary incentive to do good things, then there will be nobody to do them!  Imagine a society without doctors!

Meanwhile, teachers deserve to be paid nothing...

Actually, teachers should have to pay for the pleasure of working.

[Knives]

Obviously American costs are horrible but gosh, Australia is also quite horrific, never realised.

[opebo]

Wish they had a really cheap country like Thailand on those charts.

[Franzl]

Obviously American costs are horrible but gosh, Australia is also quite horrific, never realised.

Not really, in a relative sense.

[courts]

This is what happens when you don't have price controls.

But.. but.. if you don't give people a monetary incentive to do good things, then there will be nobody to do them!  Imagine a society without doctors!

you could guarantee generic prescriptions (nationalization?) or import drugs. and pay doctors less sure in exchange for free med school or something.. but there's a lot more behind skyrocketing prices than that. so long as society treats healthcare as basically just disease management and the american government continues to subsidize the modern insurance rackets (that they created), big pharma's greed and of course the worst horrendous practices of so much of our "food" industry (hfcs, abuse of hormones in livestock, etc.) nothing will improve.  

that and doctors have a point that a lot of medical tests are unnecessary and inflate healthcare costs. but oh no, can't have 'rationing' or limit 'consumer choice' that way...

[Maxwell]

There is something that should help: Letting Medicare negotiate with drug companies on prices. This is something I find myself agreeing with liberals on again and again. If we are going to have Medicare, than why do something so blatantly anti-capitalist as not letting Medicare do any negotiation with the businesses it works with. I find it bewildering.

I'm not saying that's the solution, but that's something that should help.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Where is all that money going?

[DemPGH]

No surprise - this is what happens when you turn everything over to a "free" market and let it regulate itself. The proverbial wolf winds up in charge of the hen house. And that wolf thinks of no one but himself.