It Gets Worse
You all know by now that the US spends about twice as much, in terms of percentage of GDP, as most other industrialized nations do on health care, with no better and possibly worse average outcomes and generally lower life expectancy.
But it didn't really occur to me until just a few days ago that the story was even worse than that. A large part of any country's health spending is going to be directed towards the elderly. So it makes sense to look at the percentage of a country's elderly population. I just did a couple quick checks, using those 65 and over as the measure:
United States: 13%
France: 17%
Germany: 20.6%
Our current age distribution suggests that we should actually spend relatively less than other industrialized countries, all else being equal, whereas in fact we spend 1.5 to 2.0 times as much.
But it didn't really occur to me until just a few days ago that the story was even worse than that. A large part of any country's health spending is going to be directed towards the elderly. So it makes sense to look at the percentage of a country's elderly population. I just did a couple quick checks, using those 65 and over as the measure:
United States: 13%
France: 17%
Germany: 20.6%
Our current age distribution suggests that we should actually spend relatively less than other industrialized countries, all else being equal, whereas in fact we spend 1.5 to 2.0 times as much.