I'm glad Australia's healthcare system worked well for you, and I'm glad you were able to get the treatment you needed without being financially destroyed. That is a real strength of your system. But you're comparing the AUD 100 you paid in Australia with the full U.S. list price of the drug. Most insured Americans would not personally pay the full $70,000. In the U.S., health insurance plans have annual maximum out-of-pocket limits for covered care. Once that limit is reached the insurer pays the covered in-network costs for the rest of the year. Those limits can still be high $15,000 or more for a family, but patients generally are not paying the full list price of expensive medications or treatments. Every healthcare system has tradeoffs. Australia's system does a better job of limiting patients' out-of-pocket costs. The U.S. has strengths in other areas including medical research and pharmaceutical innovation. Out of curiosity, how much does the Australian government spend each year on developing new drugs and medical research? How many of the breakthrough cancer drugs used around the world were actually developed in Australia versus the United States? The U.S. funds and performs a significant share of the world's biomedical research and many countries benefit from those discoveries. Your experience is a valid argument for Australia's healthcare system, but it doesn't prove socialism is automatically superior or that anyone who disagrees is ignorant.
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