FOR the third year in a row, United States healthcare spending has slowed and is below the double digit growth rates experienced in the 1990s, according to a report in US health policy journal Health Affairs}The authors showed US health spending in 2005 increased by 6.9 per cent to almost dollar2 trillion or dollarUS6,697 (dollarA8,646) per person, equivalent to 16 per cent of US gross domestic product (GDP).In contrast, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data showed that while we experienced a higher rate of growth in health spending in 2004/05 than the US (10.3 per cent), we spent around half the amount on health per capita (dollarUS3,369 or dollarA4,349) and a significantly lower amount as a percentage of GDP (9.8 per cent).
展开▼
