Health Insurance in the USA

[Ohbse]

I heard New Zealand's government buys very large quantities of select drugs for their health care system, making deals with drug makers to do so. NZ population is only 4.8M (2018) so not like Canada's 35M which is about equal to California's population 38M.

Yes, we have a state owned entity called "Pharmac" that negotiates and tenders for pharmaceuticals on the countries behalf, as a result the 'bang for buck' is about the best in the world. This same model works *better* with more scale.. more population means increased buying power and further opportunity to negotiate favorable terms with suppliers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmac

This has been a big sticking point with negotiating trade with the united states, big pharma has significant influence and have put pressure on forcing NZ to stick to 'brand name' offerings rather than an open tender process. We pretty much tell them to bugger off.