OECD Health Data on US System

This report on health data from OECD countries has some distressing, though not entirely new, news for US citizens. The US spent 17.9% of GDP on healthcare in 2009; OECD average was 9.6%. The US spent two-and-a-half times more per person than the OECD average. For that pricetag, we ended up ranked 28th out of 34 for life-expectancy (78.2 years, just behind Chile, compared to the OECD average of 79.5). We're fourth from the bottom on premature death, have more than twice as many avoidable asthma hospital admissions than the OECD average, see our doctors less often, and pay more for our drugs. On the plus side, the colorectal cancer survival rate is excellent, and our breast-cancer survival rate is best in the OECD. We're good at the pricey stuff, and terrible at the inexpensive basics.

Sick Americans Have More Trouble Paying

A new report from the Commonwealth Fund shows that sicker, high-cost US patients are much more likely than those in other high-income countries to forgo needed care because of costs, and to struggle with medical debt. The study surveyed patients from the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. In all of those countries, patients with a "medical home"--a primary care practice that knows the patient's history and coordinates care--had fewer medical errors, better coordination of care, and greater satisfaction.

27% of the US patients had serious problems paying medical bills in the last year; the next-highest rate was 14% in the Netherlands. 42% of American patients reported having forgone care, missed doctor visits or left prescriptions unfilled for reasons of cost. This was over twice the rate for every other country except Australia (30%), New Zealand (26%) and Germany (22%).

A nice summary set of charts on the findings is available here.