US health care is by far the most costly. Percentage of GDP spent on health care:

Japan: 8%

In Japan all doctors and nearly all hospitals are in the private sector. Everyone is required to have insurance, picking from public, non-profit and for those who can't afford the average family premium of $280 (half paid by employer where applies). Japanese diet and lifestyle has a lot to do with their longevity, but costs are controlled by the Ministry of Health, which negotiates every other year with the health sector to establish set prices for each procedure. Problem: hospitals (but not doctors) lose money because the Japanese are too healthy, because of aforementioned diet and lifestyle.

UK: 8.3%

This is probably the most socialist of them all (unlike what some people claim, socialism is a matter of degree not an either/or thing; and it works with capitalism in most cases. So please, people, calm the hell down). No premiums in the UK and the entire thing is taxation funded. No co-pays, 5% on prescriptions. There are no bills, so administrative costs are very low (compared to an astounding 25% in the USA). Uk has medical "gatekeepers" that control who patents see and for what/ They are paid more if they reduce costs form their pool. The US would never use this system, and Obama is not proposing this. In the UK's favor, it has some of the best preventative care in the world (meaning the largest part of the population has access to regular checkups and dental cleanings -- insert your stupid and uncreative "British teeth" joke here.)

Germany: 10.7%

Germany's is a lot like Japan's. The Germans invented social insurance, by the way. Personally I think this is the best solution. Employers do not pay. Germans shop around some 200 private, non-profit "sickness funds". The poor get state subsidy to cover the average $750 family premium (pegged to income, by the way). The non-profit status of sickness funds means that there are no shareholders or anything (this would get Wall St. out of the health business). The sickness fund pays the salaries of its employees. The better performing sickness funds pay their workers higher salaries and they negotiate prices as a group. Some doctors feel underpaid (they earn about 2/3rd what an American doctor earns on average). To address this, the top 10% wealthiest Germans have been exempted from the system and allowed to shop around for US-style for-profit insurance.

Switzerland: 11.6%

Second most expensive system in the world after the USA. Much like japan's and Germany's. With huge private-sector capitalistic insurance and pharmaceutical sectors Switzerland has managed to balance socialism and capitalism and still compete among the world's largest economies. Thy have reached 100% universal coverage. But Switzerland, too, sets prices. Insurers are prevented from cherry-picking patients (as they do in the US) and low income citizens get subsidized for the average $750 family premium. Co-pays are capped at $420 a year.

USA: 15.3% (!)

We know the mess we have. and in our heart we know that 50 million Americans (men women and children, who are legal citizens of the US, are not all "druggies" or gangbangers) cannot simply depend on the Emergency Room like some of you geniuses suggest.

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raise medicare/medicaid reimbursement rates

kill the insurance/denial of care industry

everyone wins

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