> In any case, the socialized health care probably doesn't cover the drugs that get to exported to foreigners like you?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but large markets (socialised healthcare systems) can negotiate a fair market price for medications. This is something that the US system prevents.
Have a look at mebendazole. It's on the WHO list of essential medication. It's old so available as generic.
In economics, the usual prescription for high price despite low manufacturing costs is to lower barriers to entry.
There's probably a legal reason why someone can't just set up a company to buy mebendazole in bulk in the UK and ship it to the US and sell it for eg $200 per tablet?
It depends a bit on exactly what you mean by socialized, but I have the Singaporean system in mind. (I was just quoting Cougher when using the term socialized.)
Singapore has some of the best healthcare outcomes in the world, and costs about half as much as a share of GDP per capita as the British NHS.
Where the American system seems to combine the worst of public and private healthcare, Singapore combines the best.
In the Singaporean system individuals use a health savings account to pay for small, routine health care costs. The insurance part of the system only kicks in for larger, costlier, uncertain items.
Singapore has socialized healthcare. On the provider side, most of the hospitals are owned by the government. On the insurance side, employees are required by the government to pay into health savings accounts (with nearly matching employer contributions). There are additional public insurance schemes for the poor and elderly. On top of that, costs in the public hospitals are subsidized to a significant extent.
Seems to be an American term? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine But I agree with what you are stating. (Though if you call that system 'socialized', then the American systems are also 'socialized' to a large extent. So it's probably better to just talk about specific feature instead of such a loaded term.)
The aspect of the system that I wanted to highlight is that routine care is paid for out of the health savings account (Medisave), and not out of the insurance portion.
Another interesting aspect is that the bill you get for treatments always mentions the total cost and any subsidies you are getting. All very transparent.
There's also always a co-pay as a matter of principle, even if it's just a few dollars.
In any case, the socialized health care probably doesn't cover the drugs that get to exported to foreigners like you?
> Unreasonably high costs for prescription meds in the US is not unusual.
Yes, that's a separate problem.
Enabling (re-) imports is an important safety valve. Medical tourism is another.
Ideally, the US would fix their healthcare system. But I wouldn't hold my breath.