(Thursday, 3 may HealthDay News) - despite the fact that Americans spend more on health care that citizens of 12 other developed countries, a new report finds that more is not necessarily equal better when it comes to the quality of care.
The report of the Fund of the Commonwealth, led by the associate researcher David Squires, revealed that the United States bombings on approximately $8,000 per capita for health care, according to figures from 2009. On the other hand, the Japanese and New Zealand spend just one-third of this amount on health care, while the Norwegians and cough Switzerland about two-thirds.
Yet Americans are now the worst in terms of preventable deaths of asthma in patients aged 5 to 39. The country also rank evil - alongside the Germany - diabetes-related amputations. Cardiac arrest in hospital and mortality rates of stroke, the average stacks United States at best.
"It is a common assumption that Americans get more health services that people in other countries, but in fact we will not the doctor or the hospital as often", Squires said in a press release of the Commonwealth Fund. "The higher prices that we pay for health care and perhaps our increased use of expensive technologies is the explanations most likely health high spending in the United States unfortunately, we seem to get the best quality for this increase in spending.".
Published on Thursday, the report analyzed in Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, France, Canada, Germany, Norway, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands and United Kingdom, as and the United States--the only nation among these studies which does not provide for universal health care health care.
The authors found that the United States ranked No. 1 (followed by the Netherlands) in 2009, the proportion of its gross domestic product on health care: a full 17%. By comparison, other countries in the report has passed 12% or less, with the Japan with the rank the lowest spender at about 9%.
Despite spending their country, Americans can expect poorer access to physicians in other industrialized countries, with only 2.4 physicians for every 100,000 citizens. On this point, only the Japan fared worse, according to the report.
Other disturbing evidence included the fact that the Americans also have the rate of second-worst of medical consultations (behind the Sweden), relatively few beds, stay relatively short hospital in acute care situations and a low rate of release of the hospital.
This is all bad news, however. The United States is no. 1 in survival in patients with breast cancer. She also shared first place (with the Norway) for survival in the patients with colorectal cancer.
But when it's hospital costs and prescription of medicines, the Americans are at the higher Summit far.
At a time where a U.S. patient is released from the hospital, he or she will have cost the health care system about $18,000 on average. Care for similar Canadian patients comes to only $13 000, whereas in many other countries (Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, France and Germany), it plunges below $10,000.
When comparing the cost of 30 prescription drugs more common, the report concluded that Americans pay a third more Canadian and German and two times more than their counterparts Australian, French, Dutch, British and the New Zealand.
The Americans can take some consolation in the observation of the report that each nation in the study is faced with a growing trend of health care costs. Karen Davis, President of the Commonwealth Fund, pointed out that recent legislative changes have the potential to improve financial results of health care across the country.
"The affordable care Act gives us the opportunity to build a system of health care that provides affordable care and of high quality for all Americans," Davis said in the press release. "To achieve this goal, the United States must use all the tools provided by the Act, including new methods of organisation, delivery and pay for health care, which will help to slow the growth of health care costs while improving quality."
More information
Visit the World Health Organization to learn more about health expenditure in the world.
SOURCE: Commonwealth Fund, press release, may 2, 2012
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