Throughout recent memory the United States Congress has pinned the high cost of healthcare on the pharmaceutical industry, citing sometimes exorbitant prices for disease-modifying therapies. But drug prices are only one aspect of a much larger issue.
To put the problem in perspective, before the pandemic, “Healthcare spending in the U.S. was 18% of the gross domestic product (GDP), the highest in the developed world,” Daniel Sem, Ph.D., professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Concordia University Wisconsin, told BioSpace. “That equated to $10,222 per person.” According to The World Bank, the country with the next highest healthcare spending per capita was Switzerland, at $9,666. Canada, Australia and Japan spend between $4,200 and $5,500 per person on healthcare. Their outcomes are comparable to those of the U.S. (These are all pre-pandemic spending levels.) In 2020, U.S. healthcare spending grew 9.7% to $4.1 trillion – $12,530 per person – and accounted for 19.7% of the GDP, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ National Health Expenditure Accounts.
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