Off the chart: US and world health care costs compared
A dramatic graphic recently put together at the National Geographic blog compares a selection of industrialized countries’ health care spending with their life expectancy. The US is literally off the chart with health spending, but it shows that the high costs of the US health care system are not commensurate with quality of care.
The second, scatter-plot graph comes from Andrew Gelman at FiveThirtyEight, who adapted the information into his own graphical rendering.
Michelle Andrews writes:
The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country,
yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year. Why the high cost? The U.S. has a fee-for-service system—paying medical providers piecemeal for appointments, surgery, and the like. That can lead to unneeded treatment that doesn’t reliably improve a patient’s health.
Click on the thumbnails for the full size, or over the jump.
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