Nit-picking regulation that takes years! "The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a device designed to prevent strokes by clearing blocked carotid arteries, the main blood vessel leading to the brain. While similar metal mesh tubes, known as stents, are used in other arteries, it was the FDA's first approval of such a device for neck arteries."

How socialist ideas kill AIDS victims: "One of the main points of contention in the subtle "you're-too-stupid-to-spend-your-own-money" argument being waged against America, is the US insistence that the patents on AIDS drugs be respected, especially when the money buying these drugs is American in origin. Indeed, France's President, Jacque Chirac, called such US action "tantamount to Blackmail".... There can be no doubt that invalidating drug company patents will make drugs cheaper and more available throughout much of the impoverished world. But it will also insure that the drugs we have today will be the drugs we have for a long time to come. What will be the motivation for companies to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to develop new drugs, just to have them stolen in the name of crisis? .... I suspect that many drug companies have already reduced their AIDS research substantially, solely because of the unstable, politically charged environment that has been created around the disease by those that see it as their personal domain."

There is a good history of the American medical system here and the perverse, government-driven incentives that drive up its costs. A complex story so I will not endeavour to excerpt anything from it.