Maybe I'm reading the graphs wrong, but they seem somewhat misleading to me: shouldn't the average (top of the blue bar, bottom of slightly greener blue bar) be what you're comparing to the others? The other columns are all strictly averages too, even though the prices are centrally set for many of the other countries.

The US does come out more expensive, but not as much as the graphs might lead you to believe. It's like saying: In Australia the average student scored 43 points on a standardized test, but in the US, students in the 95th percentile got 150 points! Yeah, not so convincing.

n.b. I say this all as a Canadian.