Are Americans getting our COVID Money’s worth?

The U.S. accounts for one-third of average global deaths from COVID-19. There’ve been 1.5 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States and of those 90,000 patients have died. That means 6% of U.S. COVID-19 patients have died. In contrast 14% of patients in the U.K. and 4.5% of patients in Germany have died. Clearly something is amiss!

Each American spends about $10,000 per year on health care, while residents of the U.K. spend only $4,000 and residents of Germany spend $6000. So, even though the residents of the U.S. spend 60% more than residents of the U.K. and 40% more than residents of Germany on health care we’re experiencing more cases and fatalities while spending more on COVID-19 than either the U.K. or Germany.

While population density is often attributed to the spread of infectious disease, COVID-19’s spread appears to violate that rule. Both the U.K. and Germany have seven times the density of population as the U.S. and yet they both have significantly fewer cases of COVID-19 per capita.

According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation

“The U.S. devotes more of its national income to healthcare relative to other OECD countries.”

Healthcare spending in the U.S. is the highest among all OECD countries and now it appears we’re about to spend much more on…