Pricey U.S. Health Care Does Not Increase Life Expectancy: Study

A latest research states that expensive health care does not really increase life expectancy in the United States.

Comparison of 27 industrialized countries by the researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Fielding School of Public Health and McGill University from Montreal, Canada, found that the expensive health care given in the U.S. was not that efficient.

"Out of the 27 high-income nations we studied, the United States ranks 25th when it comes to reducing women's deaths," said Dr Jody Heymann, senior author of the study and dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. "The country's efficiency of investments in reducing men's deaths is only slightly better, ranking 18th."

The researchers studied data of 27 countries taken from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The data was collected between 1991 and 2007 and analyzed for the way health care expenditures worked in the countries.

The results showed that in America, for every 100 dollars spent on health care, people received just less than half a month in life expectancy. On the other hand, in Germany, health care provided additional four months for every hundred dollars spent.

"While there are large differences in the efficiency of health spending across countries, men have experienced greater life expectancy gains than women per health dollar spent within nearly every country," said Douglas Barthold, the study's first author and a doctoral candidate in the department of economics at McGill University.

The study was published on line in the American Journal of Public Health, under the section titled, "First Look."