Why does the UK pay less for medicines?

According to the OECD, In 2021 the U.S. spent $1,432/capita on pharmaceuticals compared to only $517/per capita in the UK. The UK’s figure was slightly higher that Poland and Norway, but less than Latvia, the Slovak Republic, Portugal and Romania. How does the UK spend so little on drugs? Many people focus on the efforts…

P4P in the UK

General Practitioners (GPs) in the UK NHS are paid a mixture of capitation, lump sum allowances, and a pay-for-performance bonus. The P4P element, the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), rewards GPs according to their performance on a large number of indicators. QOF payments represented up to 20% of GPs ’ income in the first year…

Why operations in Great Britain are being cancelled

On Wednesday, many of the NHS workers went on strike.  Seven thousand of the day’s 30,000 operations were cancelled. Why are workers striking?  One reason is pensions.  According to a new government plan, workers would be required to increase their pension contributions 3.2 percentage points without seeing an increase in the value of their pensions.  Additionally,…

Health Reform in the UK

Health Reform in the U.S. means more government involvement in health care.  More public insurance (expanding Medicaid), more government intervention in the insurance market (health exchanges), and government being a driving force for innovation (the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation). In the UK on the other hand, “Health Reform” means more privatization, not less.  As…

Price Competition for UK Hospitals?

Is health reform coming to the UK?  Since the middle of the decade, the NHS has used a tariff system which pays a fixed price per procedure. Now, however, the Financial Times, reports that the UK plans for “public and private hospitals to compete on price for the treatment of NHS patients.”  The reform calls…