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The US spends 17% of its GDP on healthcare, with 50% of expenditures going to 5% of the population due to poverty, mental illness, and unsafe lifestyles. Increasing spending on social services could reduce healthcare costs. The US accounts for 40% of global healthcare spending, with hospital stays costing three times more than in other developed countries. Cancer survival rates in the US are among the highest in the world.
The United States spends about 17% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care, which amounted to about $2.7 trillion US dollars (USD) in 2012. Nearly 50% of all US health care expenditures are on about 5% of the population. This subset of the population is thought to require so much expense not only due to disease, but also due to issues such as poverty, mental illness, or unsafe lifestyles that inhibit or prevent effective treatment. Supporters of increasing spending on social services believe that helping these people through the assistance of social workers could be a solution to reduce total health care spending.
More information on health care:
The United States accounted for 40% of global healthcare spending in 2012, followed by Japan with 8%.
The average cost of a hospital stay in developed countries around the world is about $6,200 USD, which is about one-third of the average in the United States.
Cancer survival rates in the United States are among the highest in the world. For example, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer averaged 89.3% from 2004 to 2009, while the average for other developed countries was 83.5%.
