> But somehow the USA comes up with the the first vaccines for the coronavirus and if you want any sort of complex procedure you travel to the US to get it
This isn't true, the US didn't make the first vaccines, it was created by a German company that partnered with Pfizer for trials/production/distribution[0]. People more often travel outside the US for care, we actually have the second highest amount of people leaving their home country for medical care[1], with the top destinations being in South America [1a].
> creates good to better health outcomes on average vs the rest of the world
This would be nice if true, but we spend more and still have worse outcomes in almost every area[2]. The only things I could actually find that are better here is post-op sepsis and 30-day heart attack survival, but in just about every other area it's more dangerous to get care in the US.
I think the preceding comment was operating on the presumption of linear returns from medical research. Since higher medical costs in the US goes directly towards medical companies, and indirectly to medical research after taxes and dividends and stockbuybacks...
Of course the biggest issue of all time is that germs are evolving to survive our antibacterial soap, we may need to develop a large variety of antibiotics.
This isn't true, the US didn't make the first vaccines, it was created by a German company that partnered with Pfizer for trials/production/distribution[0]. People more often travel outside the US for care, we actually have the second highest amount of people leaving their home country for medical care[1], with the top destinations being in South America [1a].
> creates good to better health outcomes on average vs the rest of the world
This would be nice if true, but we spend more and still have worse outcomes in almost every area[2]. The only things I could actually find that are better here is post-op sepsis and 30-day heart attack survival, but in just about every other area it's more dangerous to get care in the US.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_COVID-19_vaccine_de...
[1]: https://www.health-tourism.com/medical-tourism/statistics/
[1a]: https://amjmed.org/medical-tourists-incoming-and-outgoing/
[2]: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...