Quote:Consider New Zealand. There, a government agency called Pharmac evaluates the efficacy of new drugs, decides which drugs are cost-effective, and negotiates the prices to be paid by the national health-care system. These functions are separate in most countries, but thanks to this integrated approach, Pharmac has indeed tamed the national drug budget. New Zealand spent $303 per capita on drugs in 2006, compared with $843 in the United States. Unfortunately for patients, Pharmac gets those impressive results by saying no to new treatments. New Zealand "is a good tourist destination, but options for cancer treatment are not so attractive there right now," Richard Isaacs, an oncologist in Palmerston North, on New Zealand's North Island, told me in October.
And this is one of the largest reasons that drug and treatment costs in America are so high - we're making up for the discounts other countries get, out of our own pockets. This, and the high cost of malpractice insurance - itself driven by the massive need for tort reform in malpractice cases - are the primary reasons cost of care is so high, and insurance companies are so reluctant to pay for expensive treatments.
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Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.