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Re:CDC declined to test new coronavirus patient for days, Ca... by Zach_the_Lizard on Thursday February 27, 2020 @05:06PM (#22438470)
> Specifically, physician salaries plus diagnostic tests comprise 4.04% of GDP in the US, compared to only 2.3% in the UK.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001429212...

If you read more, I believe diagnostic testing comes out to 0.5% of GDP in the UK vs. 2% of GDP in the US, a far bigger effect than the difference in salaries.

So yes, there is some indication that lawsuits can lead to more tests and thus wildly higher testing costs.

I wonder if this is also leading to doctors to favoring newer medications that should be "the best" versus cheaper generics that would be more cost effective for a particular ailment.

Speaking of which, the way drug approvals and patents work also increases costs, and there are perhaps some small tweaks like permitting foreign first-world drug approvals to count in the US as well that might also help keep a lid on costs.

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