The United States spends more than twice as much per person on health care compared to other wealthy nations. Yet, unlike these other nations, Americans do not enjoy universal coverage, while also experiencing worse health outcomes.

• In 2024, the US spent $14,884 per person compared to an average of $7,371 among 13 other wealthy nations.
• While spending more, Americans do not utilize many key health care services more than people in other nations, rather, the prices for the same products and services are significantly higher.
• Americans lived 4.1 years less than peer nations in 2023; this gap was only 0.8 years in 1980.
• In 2023, 705,331 more Americans died than they would have with the same death rate as comparable nations; in 1980, 43,109 fewer Americans died than they otherwise would have.

A significant difference between the US health care system and other countries is its complexity and the dominance of for-profit corporations. Other countries guarantee health coverage through socialized medical care, single-payer insurance, and heavily-regulated multipayer systems that rely on private insurance, predominantly nonprofit insurers. Contrastingly, while the US has socialized health care for veterans and public insurance programs, the vast majority of Americans get coverage from large, for-profit corporations.

Solution: End the Corporate Domination of Health Care

Many reforms are needed to fix American health care, but the United States must principally guarantee health coverage to all while reining in costs and ending the corporatization of American medicine.

• Pass Medicare for All, covering all Americans under a single-payer system modeled after Traditional Medicare with key enhancements, such as implementing annual out-of-pocket maximums for all health care spending, giving Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices, and covering drug, dental, vision, and hearing care.
• Pass a national corporate practice of medicine law to stop the corporatization and financialization of health care providers, closing existing loopholes in state laws.
• Establish a health technology assessment agency to appraise products and services based on robust evidence to better inform both medical professionals and pricing.

Polls Show Public Backs Larger Government Role 

The following data comes from a November 6-20, 2024 Gallup poll of 1,001 American adults nationwide in response to the following question: “Do you think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage, or is that not the responsibility of the federal government?”

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world, yet all Americans do not have health coverage —  and we spend more money while suffering significantly worse health outcomes, living several years less than comparable nations. The US health care system is dominated by corporate profiteers who exercise significant economic and political power to influence and maintain control over government, media, and other medical institutions and professionals. Many reforms are required to address all the issues with this system; however, necessary steps are to guarantee health coverage to all and to eliminate corporate control.

Resources:

• How Does the US Healthcare System Compare to Other Countries?, Peter G. Peterson Foundation. 
• How Do Healthcare Prices and Utilization in the United States Compare to Peer Nations?, Peterson-KFF Health Systems Tracker, September 4, 2025.
• Financialization in Health Care: The Transformation of US Hospital Systems, Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt, CEPR, September 9, 2021.
• Fundamental Health Reform Like ‘Medicare for All’ Would Help the Labor Market, Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute, March 5, 2020.
• Health Technology Assessment for the US Healthcare System, USC Schaeffer and The Aspen Institute, February 2020.