Why does an appendectomy in Germany cost roughly a quarter what it costs in the United States? Or an M.R.I. scan cost less than a third as much, on average, in Canada?
Americans continue to spend more on health care than patients anywhere else. In 2009, we spent $7,960 per person, twice as much as France, which is known for providing very good health services. And for all that spending, we get very mixed results — some superb, some average, some inferior — compared with other advanced nations.
According to The Money Traps in U.S. Health Care piece in the NYTimes yesterday, the complexity of these issues continue go elude the silver bullet aficionados.
Three of the of largest ticket items are highly actionable: lack of coordinated care, uncontrolled diabetes and asthma. The first is an electronic record intervention and the other two are symptoms of primary care deficiencies.
With the US leading several key care categories, the system is not as a whole broken. It has very specific and actionable redesign opportunities.
