US Healthcare Spending chart
60% public (Medicare, Medicaid, and other public) and 40% private
Compared to international
We spend more on health care
- Per capita
- % GDP
We are not healthier
- average Life expectancy, but lowest of that category
- better Infant mortality
Other contributors to health beyond HC
- Income, welfare,
- cultural differences:
diet, exercise, smoking, drinking,
High Health Expenditure and better quality HC
Flu Vaccination, Heart Attack Survival, Lung Cancer Survival
High Health Expenditure but worse quality HC
Deaths Preventable with
timely & appropriate care
Complexities of US HC System
Costs of many insurers
Accessibility/unfunded mandates (only country that doesn’t have public insurance for everyone)
Misaligned Incentives
What accounts for insurers failure
- Price bargaining & utilization control
- Uninsured
What accounts for Accessibility failure?
- Patchy Health Insurance Coverage
- Unfunded Mandates
What accounts for Misaligned Incentives failure
- demand for health care determine by supplier
- no incentive to contain costs from insurer and supplier
Good reasons for HC spending
1) Growth in # insured
2) Medical Advances
3) Unfunded Mandates
But there are unintended consequences
Per capita spending
total health care expenditure divided by the entire population, not just those that used health care that year.
Likeliness of us citizen rating as health as bad
Less likely
Quality care is measured by
Preventative care, chronic illness care, deaths prevented by primary care,
