The US and High Health Care Spendings:

A Comparative Case With OECD on the Three Prominent Factors

Authors

  • Seksiri NIWATTISAIWONG Lancaster University

Keywords:

health care expenditure, health care spending, high spending factors

Abstract

Attaining state of good health and accessing to decent health care are desirable for human beings. The access to health care has been enshrined in several human rights declarations, notably the Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Article recognises the right to health and role of governments to create and ensure universal coverage to healthcare. An indication of a good standard of health is measured through having equal care access at an affordable price. In reality, the health statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD Health Statistics, 2018) indicated that the health expenditures in many developed countries are relatively high in comparison with their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This paper starts out by attempting to find an explanation as to why the U.S. health care spending is high relative to its OECD counterparts. The review on existing literatures found that all OECD members have rising healthcare and the United States is indeed the highest of all.

Author Biography

Seksiri NIWATTISAIWONG, Lancaster University

Division of Health Research

Published

2019-05-21