(NewsNation) — The United States’ annual health care spending appears to be returning to pre-pandemic trends, as it spent more on health care in 2022 than six other countries’ healthcare combined, according to new federal data.
According to OECD Data, the U.S. spent more on healthcare than the governments of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, and France combined to provide universal health care coverage to their entire population — a total of $335 million — which is comparable in size to the U.S. population of 331 million.
In 2022, the U.K. and France spent around $300 billion, while Germany spent about $380 billion in health care. Italy spent $147 billion, Spain spent $105 billion and Austria spent $43 billion.
The nations’ combined total, $1.2 trillion, is about two-thirds of what the U.S. spent without offering all of its citizens the option of forgoing private insurance.
Health care spending in the U.S. rose 4.1% in 2022 to $4.5 trillion, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report revealed. Officials say it indicates a return to pre-pandemic patterns after two years of unpredictability.
Analysts indicated that the growth was driven by spending on Medicaid and private health insurance, with the insured share of the population surging to a historic high of 92%.
The number of uninsured Americans declined for the third straight year to 26.6 million from 28.5 million in 2021.
Spending on health care surged 10.6% in 2020 and declined to 3.2% in the following year.
The estimated health care spending per person in the U.S. stood at about $13,493 in 2022.
Personal spending on hospital care, dental, clinical and physician services slowed down; however, non-personal expenses increased — driven by a spike in the net cost of insurance.
Medicaid spending surged 9.6%, reaching $805.7 billion, and private health insurance spending grew 5.9%, totaling $1.3 trillion. Medicare spending rose 5.9% to $944.3 billion.
