Full draft

The United States spends 17.6 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on healthcare each year (Kane, 2012), this amounts to 17.6 cents of every U.S. dollar. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an economic group comprised of 34 member nations including the United States. The OECD average is between 6 and 8 percent GDP spent on healthcare. Among OECD nations the U.S. scores below average in almost all areas of healthcare, despite spending 2 ½ times more of its economy on the health industry.There are many reasons for this and just as many proposed solutions. I will address three potential solutions here. These are price variations for services, bureaucratic waste, and prescription oversite. Price variation is a substantial part of why healthcare costs so much in the United States. Prices for the same procedure vary by hospital, region, provider and insurer. For the first example, we will look at the cost of a lower joint replacement. According to a Washington Post article (Kliff and Keating, Ye2013r) the price in Virginia varies from $25,000 to $117,000. While in Texas, two hospitals that are 5 miles apart range from $42,632 to $160,832. The second example comes from two hospitals in New York City, which have a price variation of 321% for treating complicated cases of asthma and bronchitis. The difference is $34,310 compared to $8,159. (Kliff and Keating, Ye2013r) Other countries have developed a set fee schedule to address this problem. The government sets a price range for most services, this allows them to develop a budget and monitor costs. If they find that a particular area is exceeding their projections, they lower the cost of services in that area (Kane, 2012). This flexibility allows the government to maintain its budget and keep costs lower. However, where these countries have the ability to