The statistic led Irene Papanicolas, a co-author on the study, to delve into the topic to see what makes the US spend so much more on healthcare.
The Health Affairs study set out to address three three main questions. How does the US compare to other high-income countries in terms of its overall social spending? Is there any evidence that countries that spend less on social services have higher spending on health care? Is there any evidence that increases in social spending over time are associated with decreases in health care spending?Courtesy of Health Affairs.The results surprised Papanicolas, she said.
The study makes the conclusion that there are other reasons as to why the US spends so much on healthcare, but it doesn't identify them. "This is not us saying social programs should not be invested in," Papanicolas said."That's not the takeaway to get from this study. We know by investing in social programs, health outcomes improve."The US spent approximately 17% of its gross domestic product on the healthcare system. This is nearly twice as much as other high-income countries. The average healthcare spending across the OECD was approximately 8.8% of GDP in 2015.