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Healthcare Spending

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Health Care Spending
“More health care is not always better health care” (OECD, 2013, para. 2) Throwing money at the current health care system won’t necessarily help or solve the present-day crisis. The United States is #1 in the world in per capita health care spending yet our life span is not the longest or of the highest quality (OECD, 2011). This paper will overview the current and future health care programs, how they are currently financed and in the future, and how we can decrease spending.
There are many methods to look at how healthcare expenditures are calculated. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) tells us that in 2011 the US federal government spent $2.7 trillion or 17.9% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on healthcare expenditures (Canadian Institute of Health Information, 2013). This is broken down as hospital care 31.5%, LTC (long term care) 5.5%, physician fee and clinic visits 20% and prescriptions 9.1%. By comparison in Canada, $211 billion was spent representing 11.6% of GDP (Canadian Institute of Health Information, 2013). Of course it is probably unfair to compare the two countries. Canada, with a population of 35 million is closer to the state of California, at 38 million (United States Census Bureau, 2013).
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is made up of 34 countries that “use its wealth of information on a broad range of topics to help governments’ foster prosperity and fight poverty through economic growth and financial stability” (OECD, 2013). It states that based on population the US does not have too many physicians, doctor visits, hospital beds, or hospital stays (OECD, 2011). The average country spends $3233 per person per year on healthcare. These are countries like France, Switzerland, and Australia. The US output is $7960. Thus healthcare spending should be lower than other countries of similar

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