The authors write that an emphasis must be put on constraining drug prices and administrative costs if the United States desires to bring healthcare spending more in line with other countries, which not only spend less but have better health outcomes. The report found that the differences were driven mainly by prices for labor and goods, including physician and hospital services, pharmaceuticals, diagnostic tests, devices, and administrative costs.
A new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association says an emphasis must be put on constraining drug prices and administrative costs if the United States desires to bring healthcare spending more in line with other countries, which not only spend less but have better health outcomes. The report found that the differences were driven mainly by prices for labor and goods, including physician and hospital services, pharmaceuticals, diagnostic tests, devices, and administrative costs.
However, the US population does not appear to use care more than other countries, which is why healthcare reform efforts aimed at utilization alone are unlikely to have an impact on spending, the authors said.
Researchers compared data from 2013-2016, looking at 10 high-income countries (United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, Japan, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Denmark) in comparison to the United States.
Compared to those countries, the United States:
Other findings included:
Contrary to other common beliefs about high US healthcare spending, these data suggest that the following, in fact, did not seem to influence spending: an underinvestment in social programs, the low primary care/specialist mix, a fee-for-service system, or preventive medicine leading to overutilization.
This analysis also showed that US spending on social determinants of health appears to be similar to that in other countries.
However, spending was higher on procedures; for example, a US coronary artery bypass graft surgery cost $75,345, vs $15,742 in the Netherlands; a US computed tomography scan cost $896 per scan vs $97 in Canada.
Reference
Papanicolas I, Woskie LR, Jha AK. Health care spending in the United States and other high-income countries. JAMA. 2018;319(10):1024-1039. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.1150.
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