According to a report released in January 2020 by the Commonwealth Fund, a non-profit, non-partisan organization, American health care only scored 66 points out of a possible 100 and lagged far behind the rest of the industrialized world. American health care received low grades on efficiency, access to care, and outcomes. The United States spends nearly 18% of its GDP (gross domestic product) on health care, compared to 10% of the GDP spent by most other industrialized nations. The U.S. spent $9,364 per person on health care in 2016, compared to $4,094 in the U.K. A John’s Hopkins team estimated a grand total of 48% of all federal spending goes to Health Care!
Administrative costs in the U.S. are the highest of account for 25 percent of total U.S. hospital spending. Reducing U.S. per capita spending for hospital administration to Scottish or Canadian levels would have saved more than $150 billion.
It has the lowest life expectancy and highest suicide rates among the 11 OECD nations. The U.S. has the highest chronic disease burden and an obesity rate that is two times higher than the OECD average. Compared to peer nations, the U.S. has among the highest number of hospitalizations from preventable causes. It also ranks last among 16 high-income, industrialized nations when it comes to deaths that could potentially have been prevented with timely access to effective health care.
