Social care spending: Guess which country ranks last?

Two health policy analysts have explored the relationship between health care spending and general social welfare spending in a report on 13 rich countries’ health care systems.

The analysts, David Squires and Chloe Anderson, have included tables covering topics such as health care spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) and diabetes-related amputation rates in the report, which was distributed by the Commonwealth Fund.

Squires and Anderson also included data, drawn from a report published in 2013, showing how much each of the 13 rich countries spends on non-health social care programs, such as retirement programs and disability programs, and how much each of the countries spends on health and social care programs combined.

France and Sweden have been putting the highest share of GDP to health care and social care spending.

In France, for example, 12 percent of GDP goes to health care programs, and 21 percent of GDP goes to social care programs. The country spends a total of 33 percent of GDP on health care and social care programs combined.

France and Sweden, which have similar spending patterns, are in the middle of the rich-country pack when it comes to total social and welfare spending, but at the top of the pack when it comes to social care spending.

Commonwealth Fund authors tend to promote the idea that the United States should try to make its public health programs more like other rich countries’ health programs. In the new report, Squires and Anderson suggest that the United States could learn something from other rich countries’ social care programs.

“In the U.S., health care spending substantially outweighs spending on social services,” Squires and Anderson conclude. “This imbalance may contribute to the country’s poor health outcomes. A growing body of evidence suggests that social services play an important role in shaping health trajectories and mitigating health disparities.”

To see which countries rank at the bottom of the analysts’ list in terms of share of GDP going to social care spending (hint: English is a popular language in all of them), read on.