A recent report on March 5, 2012 by International Federation of Health Plans revealed that, one day hospital stay in India costs around $236 as compared to $655 in France and $3949 in US. Why this difference? What perpetuates this disparity in medical cost from country to country? What is driving these pricing differences? Is it because of difference in economy of these countries or difference in the quality of care provided by them?
Few arguments support that the price variation is not at all correlated to quality of care or complexity of population being served. But, it may be related to the market leverages measured by the relative market position of that country in healthcare. The increase could be attributed by commercialization in healthcare market, high concentration of specialists in that country, better health insurance benefits and per capita healthcare spending by that country.
Comparing the US spending on health care with other countries, various surveys have supported that the per capita healthcare spending by US is the maximum of all countries in the world, perhaps, a probable reason for high price of healthcare to its consumers. Not only this, it is surprising to note that U.S does not have many doctors and hospital beds relative to its population, another major reason why healthcare prices are higher to balance out the high healthcare spending by the country.
It is also pertinent to note that the prices in healthcare are rising in all countries across the globe and whether these countries are providing good quality of care at lower cost than United States is an important question to answer. Hence, it would be misleading for us to talk about the US healthcare market alone as some of the healthcare services provided by them are indeed the best of all as compared to others. Sometimes, the variation is enormous to average out its other factors that lead to price hike.