When the Commonwealth Fund released its most-recent health care rankings last summer, the United States was last among 11 high-income countries. Despite spending the most by far on health care, the U.S. is outperformed by other nations on a host of measures. A new analysis in JAMA by Irene Papanicolas, Ashish Jha, M.D., and colleagues concludes that the spending disparity can be attributed largely to higher U.S. prices — particularly for doctors and pharmaceuticals — as well as higher administrative costs.
High U.S. Health Care Spending: It's Still About the Prices
