U.S. debt tops $14trillion

[GreatEmperor]

Which is why further health-care reform is all the more important. If the U.S. could actually regulate and set the limit on prices of pharmaceutical drugs, like we do in Australia, the price of drugs could drop to as low as 1/3 of what they are now. Australia, Canada, U.K. and many other nations do exactly that, and because of that single measure, health insurance and health care is dramatically cheaper in those countries.

That alone would save an untold fortune.

This law/regulation would also have the added bonuses of decreasing the amount of mentally ill swamping the prison system and reducing the cost of running the prison system. Since the price of pharmaceutical drugs in the U.S. is so expensive, some mentally ill people often turn to crime in order to afford the medication that can help their psychosis, or they end up committing crimes naturally because they go off their meds once they can't afford them.

Controlling the price of drugs would likely decrease the influx of mentally ill criminals, saving the state and federal governments money, while stopping U.S. prisons from being the biggest mental health facilities in the country.

Absolutely, but the medicaid medicare thing is the biggest slice that can be totally cut with no negative side effects, a federal level department would make it insanely cheaper while only cutting out insurance companies from most medical transactions not all. Drug companies still sell their wares in Canada even at the reduced price because it absolutely does not cost the US price to make that junk.