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May 09, 2011 at 08:00 PM
Analysts at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Menlo Park, Calif., have published data on the shift in a report based on data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris.
The United States started out in 1970 with per-capita health care expenditures that were 58% higher than the average for a group of 15 wealthy countries that includes Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The gap shrank to 51% in 1980, then soared to 86% in 1990. The gap shrank slightly,
to 84%, between 1990 and 2000.
But the gap swelled to 91% in 2008, according to Kaiser figures.
Similarly, the United States started out in 1970 with 7.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) going to health care. That percentage was 37% higher than the average for the 15 wealthy OECD countries that the Kaiser analysts included in their charts.
