The comments about the use of percentiles biasing the data are very true, in particular because there are effectively 3 pools of patients in the US: private/employer insured, Medicare/Medicaid and uninsured.
Medicare and Medicaid pay far less than private (employer) insurance (and the uninsured frequently do not pay at all). As a result, many hospitals and outpatient physicians charge private insurance disproportionately more than what the services actually cost in order to cover the operational losses from medicare/medicaid and uninsured patients. It's astounding how many articles that discuss the "ludicrous" prices of health-care in the US fail to mention that the prices for goods and services billed to uninsured patients are designed to offset the losses from other patients. That $80 aspirin is $0.01 for the aspirin and $79.99 for the cost of the nurse to bring it to you and a variable $ amount that helps offset losses.
The only fair analysis is to compare averages to averages, which in the US should include both charges to medicare/medicaid and private insurance.
I'm not arguing that health care costs in the US are lower or even the same as in other countries, by the way. I'm merely trying to point out that the differences are not what they seem at first glance.
More importantly: a brief look at the IFHP website and the report itself (http://www.ifhp.com/news153.html) leads me to question whether medicare was even included in this dataset. The relevant lines from the report are "The International Federation of Health Plans was founded in 1968 by a small group of health plan industry leaders. It is now the leading global network in the industry, with more than one hundred member companies from twenty-five countries" and "Prices for the United States are calculated from a database with over 100 million paid claims that reflect prices negotiated between thousands of providers and almost a hundred health plans." Draw your own conclusions (or perhaps someone should contact them).
Edit: I've emailed them to try and find out. I'll post back here what I find.
Edit 2: Another document put together by IFHP in 2009 (http://tinyurl.com/bn9qtvm
warning: PDF) compares other countries to US private insurance and medicare separately. Medicare prices are far more in line with other countries than the averaged data would suggest.
Medicare and Medicaid pay far less than private (employer) insurance (and the uninsured frequently do not pay at all). As a result, many hospitals and outpatient physicians charge private insurance disproportionately more than what the services actually cost in order to cover the operational losses from medicare/medicaid and uninsured patients. It's astounding how many articles that discuss the "ludicrous" prices of health-care in the US fail to mention that the prices for goods and services billed to uninsured patients are designed to offset the losses from other patients. That $80 aspirin is $0.01 for the aspirin and $79.99 for the cost of the nurse to bring it to you and a variable $ amount that helps offset losses.
The only fair analysis is to compare averages to averages, which in the US should include both charges to medicare/medicaid and private insurance.
I'm not arguing that health care costs in the US are lower or even the same as in other countries, by the way. I'm merely trying to point out that the differences are not what they seem at first glance.
More importantly: a brief look at the IFHP website and the report itself (http://www.ifhp.com/news153.html) leads me to question whether medicare was even included in this dataset. The relevant lines from the report are "The International Federation of Health Plans was founded in 1968 by a small group of health plan industry leaders. It is now the leading global network in the industry, with more than one hundred member companies from twenty-five countries" and "Prices for the United States are calculated from a database with over 100 million paid claims that reflect prices negotiated between thousands of providers and almost a hundred health plans." Draw your own conclusions (or perhaps someone should contact them).
Edit: I've emailed them to try and find out. I'll post back here what I find.
Edit 2: Another document put together by IFHP in 2009 (http://tinyurl.com/bn9qtvm warning: PDF) compares other countries to US private insurance and medicare separately. Medicare prices are far more in line with other countries than the averaged data would suggest.