Health Spending Continues Slow Growth, Latest OECD Data Show

WASHINGTON, July 7, 2015 -- Health spending in the United States grew by 1.5% in 2013, down from 1.6% in 2012, and less than half the average annual growth rate in the United States prior to 2009. Meanwhile, figures for Canada show a continuing trend of health spending growth below that of economic growth, according newly released OECD health statistics for 34 countries covering the period 1960 to 2014.

Health spending in the United States (excluding investment expenditure in the health sector) was 16.4% of GDP in 2013, well above the OECD average of 8.9% and that of the next highest spenders - the Netherlands (11.1%), Switzerland (11.1%) and Sweden (11.0%). In Canada, the figure was 10.2%. The share of U.S. GDP spent on healthcare has remained unchanged since 2009 and health spending growth has matched economic growth.

Preliminary growth figures for a dozen other OECD countries suggest a similar modest increase in spending overall in 2014, but with growth remaining well below the pre-crisis levels.

On average, almost three-quarters of health spending continues to come from public sources across OECD countries (48% in the U.S.; 71% in Canada), but cost-containment measures in some countries have led to an increase in the private share - either through private health insurance or direct payments by households. Greece and Portugal have seen the private share of health spending increase by around 4 percentage points since 2009, the largest increases in the OECD, resulting in a third of all health spending coming from private sources in 2013 in both countries.

Please visit the OECD’s interactive database for more spending trends and for comparative analyses on health status, risk factors to health, health care resources and utilization, and health expenditure and financing. An 8-page summary of the data, an Excel file with 50 key indicators and detailed country notes are available at www.oecd.org/health/healthdata.