Healthcare data

This chart was getting bandied around on a forum and it got me thinking about US healthcare spending. Luckily it mentioned its data source, leading me to http://www.oecdilibrary.org/content/book/health_glance-2009-en and a statistics package from BPI consulting. It's going to be time to think about relationships and throw some math at some data to see if I can reject a null hypothesis or two.

Question:  Why is the US healthcare system so expensive (relative basically everybody else)?*

 Possible contributers:
     -Lack of monopsony  power by purchasers.
          -Insurance companies do have some monopsony power in re doctors and hospitals.
          -Drug price ceilings?
     -Inefficient competition in the market.
          -AMA licensing and accreditation limits participants.
          -Lack of the ability to advertise. Compare Lasik to other outpatient procedures
          -Limited numbers of hospitals, does this compare to other limited suppliers?
          -How do these factors make the American market different than other healthcare markets? 
     -3rd party payments
          -Moral hazard and adverse selection
          -Creates a subsidy or price floor. (Which is a better model?)
     -Technology
          -Do we use more medical technology than other countries?
     -General American trends
          -Do we pay doctors, nurses and medical people more than others?
          -Do we pay doctors etc more relative similar Americans?
     -Income effects
          -Do we consume more healthcare because it's a superior good and we can afford it?
          -Can this be related to the income differences between Americans and Europeans?
          -Test: What kind of things do we spend out money on? What percentage goes to "extra" healthcare?
      -All the stuff I haven't thought of yet

OK, so the data that I found don't look like they address most of the things that cause high US health costs. This will take some thinking.

*Let's leave results out for this, those may be for other reasons than economics and I don't know enough medicine to tell the difference between a good theory and data mining.** 

**I probably don't know enough about the healthcare system to tell good results from data mining either, but hey, there might be some chance on that one!