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The Federal Government and trial lawyers are the biggest reasons for what you see here. The Gov't programs of Medicare and Medicaid have forced medical costs to skyrocket. The administrative costs of these programs has spiraled costs out of control. Lawsuits filed for every little perceived and actual misdeed have skiraled malpractice insurance rates higher for those in the medical profession. The actual cost of providing a treatment have risen over the years but that is nothing compared to the governmental and legal burden heaped on this profession over the last 30 or so years.

Your so called "semi-free" health care in Brazil still had to be payed by someone. Nothing is really free. For someone who works his a$$ off with basically 2 jobs, I resent the hell out of the government confiscating my hard earned money in the form of taxation to pay for someone perfectly capable of working a job of their own.

When the gov't takes your money in the form of taxes, very little of it goes to its intended service or benefit. The majority of it is eaten up by administrative costs [bureaucracy]. However, this is a generous country, and billions of $$ are donated to charities every year. Those charities, including hospitals, have minimal admin costs so a great majority of the donation actually gets to the intended recipients or beneficiaries. Higher taxes for more gov't programs and workers is NOT the answer.

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>that's been a question I still don't know the answer.
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>SET DISAPPOINTMENT ON
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>Coming from a *third world* country, I've been always analysing and comparing the differences between a poor country and the almighty U.S.
>From a country like Brazil, people always see that country as the poor, resourceless, corrupted place to live, whereas the U.S. are seeing as the best place to live.
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>Living almost 1 year over here now, it amazes me how backwards the U.S. can be at some specific points. Healthcare is one.
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>In Brazil, I used to pay something around US$ 100,00 for health insurance for my wife, my daugther and I. With that, we've had access to the best hospitals down there. And we didn't have to pay a fee for every visit to the doctor, or stuff like that. It was everything paid by the insurance company, depending on the type of plan you have.
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>Now, I pay US$ 700,00 for the three of us. And if we have to go to the doctor or whaterver, we still have to pay more money. This is unbelievable.
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>Although the public hospitals in Brazil are far from being great, you can still receive treatment without paying anything (depending on the treatment, you'll have to wait for awhile, but still, it's free for the people).
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>Yesterday, a friend of mine (originally from Argentina) has suffered an accident and had to go to the hospital. He doesn't have health insurance. He stayed at the hospital for 5 or 6 hours, they've taken a few x-rays, and sent him back home. Well, actually before sending him back to home, while he was still drowsy from the drugs they gave them, and still feeling a lot of pain, they gave him the bill: US$ 10.000,00.
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>Serious, what the hell is that??? 10 thousand for a couple of hours of waiting and a few x-rays???? This is stupid. And how can a poor guy pay such bill??
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>That makes me wonder:
>How come an almighty country like this cannot provide its people with healthcare for those who cannot afford health insurance? I always hear a bunch of hype about human rights and blahblahblah... so, if a poor guy suffer an accident and has to stay some days at the hospital, he'll rather wanna die instead of being kept live, since he's unlikely to be able to pay the bill. I can't believe there's nothing in the human rights to prevent that... that's ruthless.
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>And why on Earth health insurance is so expensive over here?
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>SET DISAPPOINTMENT OFF