U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective: Spending, Use of Services, Prices, and Health in 13 Countries - The Commonwealth Fund

U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective: Spending, Use of Services, Prices, and Health in 13 Countries - The Commonwealth Fund

Comment by Don McCanne

"This update, comparing us with 13 high-income countries, confirms that we
still spend far more than any other nation on health care, partly
because of our very high prices, even though we are not using more
health care.  Worse, in spite of our high levels of spending, our
population health remains relatively poor.

One exhibit in this report shows that our combined spending on health care
and on social care (retirement and disability benefits, employment
programs, and supportive housing) is about average (see Exhibit 8,
above). Considering that our health care spending is so high, it may be
that the comparatively low spending on social services is a significant
contributor to our poor population health.

We do need to improve the way we spend our health care dollars so that

everyone has affordable access to high quality care, and a single payer
system would do that. However, since we are a very wealthy nation, we
should be able to increase spending on social services as well. The
progressive taxes required to do that would also help to address our
crisis in income inequality."