Question

1. Suggest several reasons why health care spending is higher in the U.S. than in other countries. Is the fact that the U.S. population spends more per capita on health care than people in other developed countries evidence of a failure of the U.S. system?

Answer 1

COVID-19 has raised pressure on our increasingly complicated and inefficient healthcare infrastructure, making it more important to minimise costs. Administrative overhead is one explanation for high expenditures. Providers have a wide variety of multiple payer use and payment criteria, which makes it possible to hire expensive compliance support with payment and reimbursements. Americans pay about four times more much with prescription medications than residents of other developing countries. Clinics, surgeons, and nurses all charge more in the U.S. than in other nations, with healthcare prices increasing dramatically. Prices are based on business factors in the U.S.

In part, by making the government play a greater role in negotiating premiums for hospitals, most other developed countries regulate rates. The high overhead costs pushing up premiums in the U.S. are not required by their healthcare services. These governments have the potential to negotiate lower medication, medical equipment, and healthcare prices as the foreign overseers of their country's programmes. They will change the procedures used and the ability of patients to go to doctors or pursue more intensive treatments. Consumers may have fewer options, but there is leverage over expenditures.

A lack of institutional consensus in the U.S. has stopped the government from playing a bigger part in handling the cost of healthcare. The Affordable Care Act concentrated on providing access to healthcare, but preserved the status quo to foster insurance and healthcare provider rivalry.