Could US healthcare reform affect other countries?

Prescription drugs

As the US continues to focus on reforming healthcare in the country, it has been revealed the US spends more than one fifth of the nation's wealth on healthcare. This is twice as much per head as the UK does. Despite this, the average American's life expectancy is lower.

Last year America spent $252 billion on prescription drugs, and people paid almost twice as much as most developed countries for their medicine.

US drug companies can set the prices of their drugs at whatever price they think patients will pay for them, which means that even for Americans with health insurance, medical bills can be crippling.

Dr Peter Bach, who is the former head of cancer policy for the US government-run health plan Medicare, says that the huge prices of cancer drugs which can sometimes cost up to $10,000 for a week's supply of pills, can't be justified.

"If we have a situation where we're going to pay for any innovation just because the Food and Drug Administration approves the drug, even if it doesn't, for example, prolong the life of patients with cancer then, we have a market failure.

"It makes it harder to look at the innovation cycle and say 'look, we're spending our money well'," said Dr Bach.

Some have said that US drug prices have to stay high to ensure that those in the UK can get drugs cheaper.

The BBC have said how some health economists, especially those within the pharmaceutical industry, have issued a warning.

They said that imposing a system of price control like there is in the UK under the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), risks damaging not only the health of the industry but the future health of a nation.

Yet some researchers like Professor Donald Light think the US pharmaceutical industry is not as productive as the UK's.

He said that how the UK, less is spent on the drug industry making drugs, but it also puts more of its profit back into researching and developing new drugs than US-based firms.

"British prices fully recover more research and development per million pounds per sale than the United States.

"The US industry claims 17-18 percent of sales go into research and development but the British scheme allows up to 23 percent of sales to be fully recovered in British prices plus up to 22 percent of profits on capital."

Before a conclusion is reached, the healthcare reform is going to be debated more and more. As such, a resolution seems a long way off.

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