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- The United States spends the most money per person on healthcare.
- Twenty-one countries spent more than $3,000 on healthcare per capita in 2017, according to data from OECD.
- Despite spending more money than any other country on healthcare costs, health outcomes aren’t any better in the US.
Americans pay a lot for healthcare.
Depending on where they live, typical workers shelled out between $4,500 and $8,300 for healthcare in 2017. But the US government pays even more.
According to data from OECD, the US spent $10,209 on healthcare per capita, or per person, in 2017. That’s more than any other country in OECD’s 36-country consortium, and over $2,000 more than Switzerland, the second-highest spending country.
In a review published in March 2018 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that the US spent about twice as much on healthcare as other high-income countries, Business Insider’s Lydia Ramsey reported. And yet, higher spending didn’t translate to better outcomes, nor is healthcare used more frequently in the US, she wrote.
"The researchers found that what’s different, as far as US healthcare spending goes, is what the country spends on labor, goods like prescription drugs, and administrative costs," Ramsey wrote.
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The OECD data measured total healthcare costs for 36 countries, which consists of the cost of healthcare goods and services, personal healthcare, and collective services, including administration fees.
Below is a list of the countries that spent more than $3,000 on healthcare per capita in 2017:
1. United States — $10,209
2. Switzerland — $8,009
3. Luxembourg — $6,475
4. Norway — $6,351
5. Germany — $5,728
6. Sweden — $5,511
7. Ireland — $5,449
8. Austria — $5,440
9. Netherlands — $5,386
10. Denmark — $5,183
11. France — $4,902
12. Canada — $4,826
13. Belgium — $4,774
14. Japan — $4,717
15. Iceland — $4,581
16. Australia — $4,543
17. United Kingdom — $4,246
18. Finland — $4,173
19. New Zealand — $3,683
20. Italy — $3,542
21. Spain — $3,371
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Source: Business Insider – tloudenback@businessinsider.com (Tanza Loudenback)