Multinational Comparisons of Health Systems Data, 2006 by Jonathan Cylus and Gerard Anderson, Ph.D., of The Johns Hopkins University, compares health spending data in nine Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States and, where possible, the median of all 30 OECD countries. Key findings include:

* In 2004 the U.S. spent the most per capita on hospital services, and Canada and Japan spent the least. Adjusted for differences in cost of living, inpatient acute care spending per day in the United States was nearly three times the median OECD country ($2,337) and over five times more than Japan ($419).


* The U.S. spent twice the OECD median per capita on drugs in 2004-$752 compared with $377.

* Nearly one-third (30.6%) of individuals in the U.S. were obese in 2004, compared with 13 percent of the OECD median.

* The U.S. had about two and a half times the OECD median for years of potential life lost due to diabetes -- 101 per 1,000 people compared with 39 per 1,000 (U.S. data is for 2002).

The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation working toward a high performance health system.

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