https://assets.americashealthrankings.org/ahr_2025annual_comprehensivereport_final-web.pdf
We spend $13,818 per person on health care, about 2.5x the OECD average ($5,477).
And yet the U.S. is sitting at 78.4 years life expectancy (OECD 81.1), ranked 30/38.
The gap between the OECD average and the U.S. has been growing since 2003. We are not catching up, we are falling further behind.
Infant mortality is 5.6 deaths per 1,000 live births (ranked 32/38).
We are paying the most in the world just to die younger and sicker. What is the single biggest driver of this massive disconnect?
Posted by -Azzi-
34 Comments
[deleted]
Yeah no shit, we have profit seeking leeches in between people who need Healthcare and Healthcare providers. It’s literally the health insurance company’s job to pay less than than they take in.
Now show them ranked by obesity rates
Life expectancy is not a way to judge healthcare. The US life style is so unhealthy, it’s only because of our healthcare that our life expectancy is close to other developed countries.
Would love to see how all 50 states compare rather than being all lumped together. Huge variance amongst the states.
% of GDP is a more accurate for comparisons (and still has the same general result!)
Right, but its not a fair comparison, because they’re optimizing for health outcomes and we’re optimizing for corporate profits.
Because US health care systems is driven primarily for shareholder value + many Americans live as if health care is free.
God that is so sad and stupid. Decades of “healthcare” companies, pharma, and the cheap whores in DC ruining the lives of the people they claim to be helping.
Edit: phrasing didn’t make sense before
No matter how much money you throw at health care for obese people, smokers, mostly sedentary people, the outcome can only improve so much.
Let me fix that title for you:
*”US* ***charges*** *more for lesser healthcare!”*
Do these “outcomes” control for Americans’ obesity?
The overall health status, physical functioning, and mental well being of the American population is so much worse than people know. These statistics just scratch the surface. I work in public health and in Medicaid, and it is an absolute crisis. The US population is literally critically ill with massive rates of obesity, chronic disease, substance use, and absolutely horrific eating patterns. The infant mortality figures are a direct result of this crisis occuring among women of child bearing age. Worse still, the health status of our youth is deteriorating, especially in mental health with very high rates of substance use and chronic stress. We are barreling toward a crisis that is literally a threat to national security. Just ask the military how incredibly unhealthy entering recruits are.
No fair! you didn’t compare private profits and CEO total compensation >:(
Measure the distance between where the US performs in health care outcomes and the cost of service.
That is the profit being made by the insurance companies that deny you health care services when you need them.
This is evidence that we need Medicare for All in the US. We are the only ‘developed’ nation who does not provide adequate health care and we are the only developed nation with our system of insurance tied to our employment.
This system also makes it hard for a creative entrepreneur to make enough profit to go into business or to go self employed.
The system is rigged to keep hard working and creative people stuck in jobs working for rotten billionaires who take in the real profit.
Only country in the developed world where most of healthcare is essentially for-profit and medical malpractice can be in the tens of millions.
LOL, no.
The USA spend $13,818 on for profit insurance, for profit hospitals and for profit pharma.
Take the profits out, and the USA spends tree-fiddy per person on healthcare.
You can’t out treat a horrendous diet and lifestyle. At any cost.
This data is all terribly misleading.
1) USA people live much more dangerous lives than most other countries so there will be more deaths. Driving too fast, gun violence, gangs, etc.
2) USA has a lot of people that refuse medical treatmnent for religious reasons due to our religious freedom. Not fair to use this against the average for infant mortality.
3) USA has a massive drug problem no other country comes close to.
4) USA overmedicates people for anxiety and depression which costs billions and have terrible outcomes.
5) USA is way more obese than other developed countries.
The single biggest indicator of this cost to outcome differential is billing. A single-payer system like you see in most Social Health Care countries is Pennies on the dollar going to administrative services. In a hospital in the US you’re talking 25% or more going to administrative services like billing and collections. On top of that because you’re losing that much towards billing the private practices need to charge higher levels to cover that additional overhead since rarely are people looking at real dollars. You’re looking at percent margins. So in a for-profit system they are trying to make profit off of that additional 25% cost.
Most of this doesn’t break down what is health care. And most of it is administrative crap. Paperwork , etc…. And most healthcare providers are allowed to keep huge slush funds for whatever reason.
Curious if there is a “life expectancy based upon death by health issues”. I assume the U.S. has a higher rate of death by gun, death by transportation, and apparently, death by suicide rate than most developed countries
What is the factor that explains the efficiency in countries like Spain and Italy? Climate? Surprised the life expectancy is so high although they have a population that are more prone to smoking than, say, Norway and Sweden.
It’s being drained into the pockets of insurance companies and doctors.
Reminds me of the classic joke from the “Yeah mad” crew:
“Why do Americans eat like their healthcare is free?”
Cue lots of laughter.
“Well, what’s the punch line?”
“There is no punch line”.
More laughter.
Yet, if you talk with any healthcare professional, be it doctor, nurse, claims adjudicator, pharmacy technician, radiologist, etc. they will all say that they are underpaid and overworked. Every single one of them.
The system is broken because it is rigged to benefit a few. Nothing will change even with universal healthcare if the same people run it at the top. It’s not like the government will limit executive pay.
The greatest country on earth
That is because a massive amount of that $$$ goes to pay administrators. Data from Himmelstein and Woolhandler or Bureau of Labor Statistics show a dramatic, disproportionate growth in administrative staff (over 3,000% since 1970) compared to a much smaller increase in physicians (approx. 500%). This surge is frequently cited to illustrate rising healthcare costs and “administrative bloat”.
This was bad before Obamacare, but Obamacare created hundreds of thousands of new regulations, and all those regulations need people to read and understand them and make sure that the hospitals and doctors and insurance companies don’t inadvertently break them. These people don’t work for free.
Oof that covid dip. Anti-vaxxer hands are soaked in blood
Won’t someone think of the shareholder value created? /s
Why are we comparing cost of healthcare to average life expectancy from birth? Japan shows you don’t have to hardly spend anything to be the top of the life expectancy list. Americans unhealthy diet and lifestyle is the biggest hinder to long life – even if we implemented Japan’s healthcare system tomorrow.
Would be interesting to see the life expectancy stats with deaths from drug overdoses and gun violence removed. I listened to a podcast a while back that basically said the US is near the top when that’s corrected for.
Healthcare spending in the US is not evenly distributed. The top 20% of healthcare consumers consume like 80-85% of the total healthcare spending in America. Hell, the bottom half of healthcare users consume only like 3%-5% of healthcare spending. Yeah, some of those are cancer cases in otherwise healthy people, or a chick who has a kid, but the vast bulk if it are people with chronic health conditions, many of which are brought on by how we feed ourselves and refuse to move. The best thing you can do for yourself and for society is live a life to keep yourself in that bottom 50%. The healthcare spending that healthy people need, other than accidents or women having kids, is pretty minimal.
End of life care for old people, for dying old people, is basically a huge cash grab. Enormous amounts of money will be spent on old people in their last year of life, even if this spending does absolutely nothing to prolong their life. Investing in the health of a young person has a positive ROI for societal health outcome, even modest amounts. 95% of the labor that actually helps these old people are the CNAs who clean them, help them shit, make them food basically just get a bit more than minimum wage. The high cost services do very little to actually make anything better, but folks definitely collect the money.
The US has a huge amount of bureaucracy involved. I live in Japan and my wife is in the medical field. Japan has a ton of the opera scene but nowhere near as badly run it’s awful as it is in United States. It’s like they purposely chose the worst aspects of state run managerial systems and mix it with terrible aspect of capitalism