Jason Abaluck on X: "Surprised to learn that the US is below the OECD average for out of pocket health care spending as a fraction of per capita consumption, with virtually the same % as Canada. https://t.co/C02QZiHsq7" / X

Surprised to learn that the US is below the OECD average for out of pocket health care spending as a fraction of per capita consumption, with virtually the same % as Canada.

4:15 PM · Sep 13, 2024

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Jason Abaluck

@Jabaluck

Sep 13

Source: oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/599d

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The Daily Muck

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Are health insurance premiums supposed to be part of out of pocket spending?

I would assume not as I use the term but unsure for the above source.

Why is this so different from so many of their charts that I have seen? And also so different from firsthand accounts of people, Americans and non-americans, who have gotten healthcare in both in the US & in other OECD countries?

Are you looking at charts of healthcare expenditures or out of pocket costs? These are totally different.

vs

: Canada's life expectancy is higher, with Canadians living 2-3 years longer on average.

Comparing population health in the United States and Canada

From ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I disagree with the measure as a % of consumption. The US has significantly higher labor productivity and hours worked. Total cost should be a measurement featured also.

The UK now gets very close to the US on out of pocket healthcare spending as a fraction of GDP post-pandemic, which is somewhat ironic

I may be wrong, but isn't this a clear selection story? Healthcare v expensive in the US, so OOP care unaffordable for many individuals/households unless they are affluent enough. Instead in countries where private & OOP care is cheaper than US (e.g. Italy), % OOP exp consump.

at first i couldn't imagine how this could possible be accurate. I'm an american T1 diabetic who's been in DE for 8 years and my oop costs are dramatically lower. But then I remembered my vasectomy (and this goes for ANY birth control) was completley oop in DE.

That's surprising. Source en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_sp

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I think Canadian buy more prescription drugs and that is not covered by Medicare.

I wonder if that number is median or mean per capita. Or if it’s adjusted for age.

when you can't get in to see a doc your expenses are low.

The timeseries is also interesting (though different denominator here + different denominator from

@andypreston_UK

's chart, in a sort of interesting way)

Quote

Chris Pope

@CPopeHC

Jan 5, 2022

Pre-1990, US healthcare relied disproportionately on out-of-pocket payment. That's no longer the case. data.oecd.org/chart/6zNN

Yea, it's the prices we do pay. Not the proportion.

Per capita:

Out-of-pocket spending - Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker

From healthsystemtracker.org

Do we know something about access to health services? I mean, we can lower the out of pocket spending by charging large amounts for treatments that people end up by not having

Almost surely isn’t median consumption…..

I assume non out of pocket expenses are government and insurance. What do insurance premiums look like across countries?

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