http://www.oecd.org/country/0,3731,en_33873108_33873886_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

See the article on high US health costs.

The US gets a lot of crap done, medical wise per capita.

Also, we pay more for drugs. US and Japan are the best for things like Cancer. This ties in with the discovery and advancement. So to does the high ratio of advanced equipment per capita. I believe Japan is #1, saw it on a documentary about their financial crises related to health costs and an aging population. Dietary and cultural health trends also play a part.

Oh, we also pay more for our publicly administrated health apparatus. This will include bodies like the CDC and FDA.

One aspect of the higher costs, which is not specifically addressed here - but is obvious to anyone with a grounding in economics is the wide physical distribution of the population over a large area, whereas smaller countries with smaller populations will not have nearly the same overhead because the serviced population will typically be more concentrated.

Another aspect, is taking into account the psuedo-socialism that we already have in place. This comes in the form of regulations, insurance costs due to an inefficient litigation system, and other assorted misc inefficiencies but thats all found in different papers I am feeling too lazy to dig back up.

Something else that isnt mentioned in the article, but is easy obtainable with just a little bit of self motivation is comparison of waiting lists. The USA doesnt have them for most types of treatment, as opposed to most other countries. As a consequence, some popular treatments cost more if you do not want to wait. Since most people have insurance, they opt not to wait.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)