2011 health care spending was $2.7 trillion or 17.9% of the gross domestic product.
Health care sector employs 21 million people, and accounts for 15.7% of the US workforce.
In 2011 there were 2.7 million nurses and 800,000 physicians in the US.
Administrative costs have doubled from 3% in 1980 to 7% in 2010 with the growth of 5.6% per year.
Recently the rate for average yearly increases of total expenditures has declined.
Total cost of health care is affected by price, population, and demand.
Barriers to effective care for people with multiple chronic conditions include physical distance, financial costs, and shortage of facilities.
Cancer is the second most costly disease in the US, and accounts for 5-11% of the annual total healthcare budget.
The increase in health care as a portion of the economy can be accounted for by the failure of the rest of the economy to increase much at all.
The increases in price, particularly of drugs, medical devices, and hospital care, and not the intensity of service or demographic change has produced most of the increase in health care share of GDP.
Commercial insurance payers spend almost twice as much on chemotherapy compared with therapy administered in physician offices (JAMA).
Americans spend more on health care, but have shorter life spans.
Americans spend nearly twice as much on health care as other wealthy countries, but it’s not doing much to improve their health.
The United States has the shortest life expectancy and highest infant and maternal mortality rates among any of its peers.
Steep spending on drugs and doctor’s salaries are among the major drivers of the high cost of health care in the United States.
Contrary to popular belief, Americans don’t use more health care than residents in other countries.
Health care spending accounted for 17.8% of the US economy in 2016, compared to an average of 11.5% in the 11 high-income countries studied.
Americans spent $9,400 per capita on health care that year, compared to an average of $5,400 in the peer nations, which include Canada, Japan, Australia and several Western European countries.
Health care usage in the United States was relatively similar to the other countries.
Americans had lower rates of physician visits and spent fewer days in the hospital, though they had some of the highest rates for imaging tests, such as MRIs and CT scans, and some common surgical procedures, such as knee replacements, cataract surgeries and cesarean births.
Per capita spending on prescription drugs was more than $1,400, compared to an average of $750 for all nations studied.
For several commonly used medications, the American price was more than double what it was in the country with the next highest cost.
The average salary for a general practice physician in the United States was more than $218,000, compared to an average of nearly $134,000 in the peer nations.
Physician specialists are paid $316,000, compared to nearly $183,000, while nurses earn more than $74,000, compared to just under $52,000 for peer nations.
The American health care system spends far more on administrative costs, coming in at 8% of total health care spending, compared to between 1% and 3% for other countries.
The average life expectancy in the United States is 78.8 years, compared to an average of 81.7 years for the peer nations studied.
The United States also has the highest infant mortality rate, with nearly six deaths out of 1,000 live births, compared to an average of 3.6 deaths elsewhere.
The maternal mortality rate, with more than 26 out of 100,000 women dying from birth- or pregnancy-related complications, compared to an average rate of 8.4 women in other nations.