The United States continues to spend the most on health care when compared to other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
Health care prices and higher per capita incomes are major factors for higher U.S. spending, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Princeton University. Compared to the average OECD country in 2004, the United States has fewer health resources - physicians, nurses and hospital beds - and lower utilization of these resources. Health spending for chronic health issues, such as obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking, also contributes to high health spending in the United States. The study is published in the September/October 2007 issue of Health Affairs.
"We spend so much more money on health care in the United States than other industrialized countries primarily because our prices are so much higher," said lead author of the study, Gerard Anderson, PhD, a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Using 2004 data, which is the most recent available, the researchers report the following key study results: