Report: Medications, procedures cost far more in US than in eight other countries.

The Los Angeles Times (4/18, Pfeifer) “Money & Co.” blog reports, “Medical procedures, tests, scans and prescription medicine cost far more in the United States than in eight other countries, the International Federation of Health Plans said” yesterday “in its annual report,” which “examined healthcare costs in Argentina, Australia, Canada, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and the” US. Tom Sackville, the group’s chief executive, said, “The price variations bear no relation to health outcomes; they merely demonstrate the relative ability of providers to profiteer at the expense of patients, and in some cases reflect a damaging degree of market failure.”

        Vox (4/18) reports that for nearly every “item they studied, from Nexium [esomeprazole] to MRI scans to bypass surgery, the United States is always the most expensive.”