The world’s other health-care systems survive only because they receive a massive and ongoing, but hidden, subsidy courtesy of the inefficient U.S. system. Two unique features of our arrangement — the absence of price controls and the profit drive of doctors and hospitals — allow other countries to transfer the risk and cost of medical innovation to Americans.
Price controls in other countries doesn’t increase the cost of care in the same ways that price controls on rent doesn’t increase rent in the surrounding areas. It will decrease the amount of ‘innovation’ in the same way that price controls would make apartment builders hesitant to build housing in price controlled areas. But a lot of medical innovation is funded by grants of various governments (the subsidy) so it’s less likely and Americans aren’t exclusively bearing the burden of this cost.
