Why is healthcare so expensive in the United States compared to other developed countries?

Question

I never understood this because other countries have free healthcare and we don’t! We get sick and it’s expensive to even pay for anything!

In: Other

Answer 1

In the US, there is a whole industry of insurance companies, who hired people to deny claims, which means that doctors need to hire people to file claims so they won’t be denied.

Then you need lawyers to sue the insurance companies so they will pay.

Any time there is an adverse outcome, in the US, someone may decide to sue the hospital. Payouts can be huge. So the hospital needs to hire lawyers to defend themselves, which means malpractice insurance. Suing a national health system is much less common and probably much less lucrative.

So basically, for every $1000 spent on actual health care, in the US there’s another $1000 going into insurance, paperwork and lawyers. When I go to get an X-ray here in Canada, I walk in, show my health card, go in back, get x-rayed, and walk out. I don’t do any paperwork, or pay anything, and the X-ray people do minimal paperwork.