In 2023, U.S. national health expenditure as a share of its gross domestic product (GDP) reached 17.6 percent, this was an increase on the previous year. The United States has the highest health spending based on GDP share among developed countries. Both public and private health spending in the U.S. is much higher than other developed countries. Why the U.S. pays so much moreWhile private health spending in Canada stays at around three percent and in Germany under two percent of the gross domestic product, it is nearly nine percent in the United States. Another reason for high costs can be found in physicians’ salaries, which are much higher in the U.S. than in other wealthy countries. A general practitioner in the U.S. earns nearly twice as much as the average physician in other high-income countries. Additionally, medicine spending per capita is also significantly higher in the United States. Finally, inflated health care administration costs are another of the predominant factors which make health care spending in the U.S. out of proportion. It is important to state that Americans do not pay more because they have a higher health care utilization, but mainly because of higher prices. Expected developmentsBy 2031, it is expected that health care spending in the U.S. will reach nearly one fifth of the nation’s gross domestic product. Or in dollar-terms, health care expenditures will accumulate to about seven trillion U.S. dollars in total.

Among OECD member countries, the United States had the ******* percentage of gross domestic product spent on health care as of 2024. The U.S. spent nearly **** percent of its GDP on health care services. Germany, Austria, and Germany followed the U.S. with distinctly smaller percentages. The United States had both significantly higher private and public spending on health compared with other developed countries. Why compare OECD countries? OECD stands for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It is an economic organization consisting of 38 members, mostly high-income countries and committed to democratic principles and market economy. This makes OECD statistics more comparable than statistics of developed and undeveloped countries. Health economics is an important matter for the OECD, even more since increasing health costs and an aging population have become an issue for many developed countries. Health costs in the U.S. A higher GDP share spent on health care does not automatically lead to a better functioning health system. In the case of the U.S., high spending is mainly because of higher costs and prices, not due to higher utilization. For example, physicians’ salaries are much higher in the U.S. than in other comparable countries. A doctor in the U.S. earns more than ***** as much as the average physician in Germany. Pharmaceutical spending per capita is also distinctly higher in the United States. Furthermore, the U.S. also spends more on health administrative costs compared to other wealthy countries.

The average for 2021 based on 186 countries was 7.09 percent. The highest value was in Afghanistan: 21.51 percent and the lowest value was in Brunei: 2.15 percent. The indicator is available from 2000 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

This statistic shows a forecast of the U.S. national health expenditure as a percentage of GDP from 2024 to 2033. By 2032, this share is expected to increase up to nearly ********* of the national gross domestic product.

The average for 2021 based on 19 countries was 7.86 percent. The highest value was in El Salvador: 10.13 percent and the lowest value was in Haiti: 3.44 percent. The indicator is available from 2000 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

In 2024, Mexico’s healthcare expenditure represented an estimated 5.9 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), an increase of 0.2 percentage points in comparison to 2023. This figure had remained relatively stable in previous years. In that year, Mexico's GDP amounted to approximately 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars. Mexico in a global contextHealthcare expenditure is comprised of insurance, research, facility provision, and all other expenses associated with public health. Mexico's spending on healthcare in relation to its GDP is staggeringly low compared to most OECD countries. The United States, for instance, allocated approximately 17 percent of its GDP to healthcare in 2023. Furthermore, Mexico had one of the lowest levels of per capita health expenditures worldwide that year, at around 1,500 U.S dollars. This figure was equivalent to less than half of that reported by Chile, which spent 3,350 U.S. dollars per citizen on health that same year. Health coverage in the North American countryIn 2023, around 56 percent of the Mexican population was covered under one of the country’s public health care programs. Another 46 percent was affiliated to public healthcare insurance. However, despite Mexico’s efforts and investment in healthcare, a significant share of their population is still considered vulnerable due to inadequate access to health services. According to a survey carried out in Mexico in 2020, around 43 percent of respondents in whose households there was at least one member that presented symptoms of an illness did not attend a medical consultation because there were no available appointments.

Graph and download economic data for Value Added by Industry: Educational Services, Health Care, and Social Assistance: Health Care and Social Assistance as a Percentage of GDP (VAPGDPHCSA) from Q1 2005 to Q2 2025 about value added, social assistance, health, education, private industries, percent, services, private, industry, GDP, and USA.

The average for 2021 based on 12 countries was 7.74 percent. The highest value was in Argentina: 10.04 percent and the lowest value was in Venezuela: 4.1 percent. The indicator is available from 2000 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Per capita national health expenditures in the United States have increased significantly since 1960. In 2023, national health expenditures amounted to **** thousand U.S. dollars per capita. For comparison, in 1960, per capital expenditures for health stood at *** U.S. dollars. According to recent data, the U.S. has some of the highest health care costs in the world. Health care expenditures With increased per capita health expenditures, U.S. health care expenditures as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) have also increased over the decades. Among developed countries, the U.S. has the highest health expenditure as a proportion of the GDP. The high level of health costs in the U.S. may be attributable to high costs for prescribed drugs and health services as well as high administrative costs. Cost areas A large proportion of all health care spending in the U.S. is attributable to hospital care and physician and clinical services. In recent years, many sectors have seen an increase in health care spending. However, data suggests that prescription drugs have seen some of the most dramatic increases in spending in recent years. The annual prescription drug expenditures in the U.S. reached an all-time high by the end of 2022.

In 2022, the U.S. government spent more on healthcare than any other country, at 16.6 percent of GDP. In the same year, U.S. military expenditure was 3.45 percent of GDP. This statistic shows the healthcare and military expenditure as a percentage of GDP in select countries in 2022.

16.5 (%) in 2022. Level of current health expenditure expressed as a percentage of GDP. Estimates of current health expenditures include healthcare goods and services consumed during each year. This indicator does not include capital health expenditures such as buildings, machinery, IT and stocks of vaccines for emergency or outbreaks.

In 2024, the United States had the ******* per capita health expenditure among OECD countries. At that time, per capita health expenditure in the U.S. amounted over ******** U.S. dollars, significantly higher than in Switzerland, the country with the ************** per capita health expenditure. Norway, Germany and, the Netherlands are also within the top five countries with the highest per capita health expenditure. The United States also spent the highest share of it’s gross domestic product on health care, with **** percent of its GDP spent on health care services. Health Expenditure in the U.S. The United States is the highest spending country worldwide when it comes to health care. In 2023, total health expenditure in the U.S. came close to **** trillion dollars. Expenditure as a percentage of GDP is projected to increase to approximately ** percent by the year 2033. Distribution of Health Expenditure in the U.S. Health expenditure in the United States is spread out across multiple categories such as nursing home facilities, home health care, and prescription drugs. As of 2023, the majority of health expenditure in the United States was spent on hospital care, accounting for a bit less than *** third of all health spending. Hospital care was followed by spending on physician and clinical services which accounted for ** percent of overall health expenditure.

Context

Health care in the United States is provided by many distinct organizations. Health care facilities are largely owned and operated by private sector businesses. 58% of US community hospitals are non-profit, 21% are government owned, and 21% are for-profit. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent more on healthcare per capita ($9,403), and more on health care as percentage of its GDP (17.1%), than any other nation in 2014. Many different datasets are needed to portray different aspects of healthcare in US like disease prevalences, pharmaceuticals and drugs, Nutritional data of different food products available in US. Such data is collected by surveys (or otherwise) conducted by Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Foods and Drugs Administration, Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). These datasets can be used to properly review demographics and diseases, determining start ratings of healthcare providers, different drugs and their compositions as well as package informations for different diseases and for food quality. We often want such information and finding and scraping such data can be a huge hurdle. So, Here an attempt is made to make available all US healthcare data at one place to download from in csv files.

Content

• Nhanes Survey (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) - The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is a program of studies designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. The survey is unique in that it combines interviews and physical examinations. NHANES is a major program of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). NCHS is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and has the responsibility for producing vital and health statistics for the Nation. The NHANES interview includes demographic, socioeconomic, dietary, and health-related questions. The examination component consists of medical, dental, and physiological measurements, as well as laboratory tests administered by highly trained medical personnel. The diseases, medical conditions, and health indicators to be studied include: Anemia, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, Environmental exposures, Eye diseases, Hearing loss, Infectious diseases, Kidney disease, Nutrition, Obesity, Oral health, Osteoporosis, Physical fitness and physical functioning, Reproductive history and sexual behavior, Respiratory disease (asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema), Sexually transmitted diseases, Vision. 10000 individuals are surveyed to represent US statistics. Five files in this datasets represent current recent Nhanes data -
  Nhanes_2005_2006.csv
  Nhanes_2007_2008.csv
  Nhanes_2009_2010.csv
  Nhanes_2011_2012.csv
  Nhanes_2013_2014.csv
  
  • Data fields' description -
    • Nhanes_2005_2006.csv - Demographic, Dietary, Examinations, Laboratory
    • Nhanes_2007_2008.csv - Demographic, Dietary, Examinations, Laboratory
    • Nhanes_2009_2010.csv - Demographic, Dietary, Examinations, Laboratory
    • Nhanes_2011_2012.csv - Demographic, Dietary, [Examinations](http://https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/search/variab...

United States - Contributions to Percent Change in Real GDP by Industry: Educational Services, Health Care, and Social Assistance: Health Care and Social Assistance was 0.38000 Percentage Points in April of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, United States - Contributions to Percent Change in Real GDP by Industry: Educational Services, Health Care, and Social Assistance: Health Care and Social Assistance reached a record high of 4.98000 in July of 2020 and a record low of -3.94000 in April of 2020. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for United States - Contributions to Percent Change in Real GDP by Industry: Educational Services, Health Care, and Social Assistance: Health Care and Social Assistance - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.

Graph and download economic data for Government current expenditures: Health (G160271A027NBEA) from 1959 to 2024 about health, expenditures, government, GDP, and USA.

Read me

Pharmaceutical Drug Spending by countries with indicators such as a share of total health spending, in USD per capita (using economy-wide PPPs) and as a share of GDP. Plus, total spending by each countries in the specific year.

Data

Data comes from Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on https://data.oecd.org/healthres/pharmaceutical-spending.htm

It consists of useful information about percent of health spending, percent of GDP and US dollars per capita for specific countries. Also, we added total spending by countries using their population data.

Population data comes from DataHub http://datahub.io/core/population since it is regularly updated and includes all country codes.

Preparation

There are several steps have been done to get final data.

We extracted separately each resource by “percent of health spending”, “percent of GDP” and “US dollars per capita” We merged them into one resource and added new column “TOTAL_SPEND” “TOTAL_SPEND” is calculated using “US dollars per capita” and “population” data. Source for original pharmacy drug spending: https://stats.oecd.org/sdmx-json/data/DP_LIVE/.PHARMAEXP.../OECD?contentType=csv&detail=code&separator=comma&csv-lang=en.

Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL)

Health expenditure in the U.S. has been a hotly debated topic among political parties, especially on the verge of presidential elections. Health expenditures in the U.S. have been increasing over time and are projected to keep increasing. As of 2023, the U.S. spent a total of *** trillion U.S. dollars on healthcare. U.S. health expenditure in comparison The U.S has some of the highest expenditures for health care in the world. With a total health spending of roughly ** percent of the country’s GDP, the U.S. has far surpassed the country with the second highest health expenditure as a share of GDP, Germany. The United States, despite having a mixed method of healthcare financing and insurances, also has one of the highest shares of domestic governmental health expenditures. U.S. health care payers There are several different governmental and non-governmental agencies that are responsible for health care funding and payments in the United States. Currently, private insurance and Medicare are the two largest payers of U.S. health care. Direct health care costs are not the only things that these payers are responsible for. They may also be partly responsible for prescription drug costs. Again, private insurance and Medicare are the two largest payers of prescription drug costs in the U.S. Among all the payers of health care costs in the U.S., Medicare has experienced the highest level of health spending increases in recent years.

United States - Value Added by Industry: Educational Services, Health Care, and Social Assistance: Health Care and Social Assistance as a Percentage of GDP was 7.70% in April of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, United States - Value Added by Industry: Educational Services, Health Care, and Social Assistance: Health Care and Social Assistance as a Percentage of GDP reached a record high of 7.70 in July of 2020 and a record low of 6.40 in April of 2005. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for United States - Value Added by Industry: Educational Services, Health Care, and Social Assistance: Health Care and Social Assistance as a Percentage of GDP - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.

Graph and download economic data for Contributions to percent change in real gross domestic product: Personal consumption expenditures: Services: Health care (DHLCRY2Q224SBEA) from Q2 1959 to Q2 2025 about contributions, health, PCE, consumption expenditures, percent, consumption, personal, services, real, GDP, and USA.

In 2022, the country with the highest share of health spending relative to its gross domestic product (GDP) in Latin America and the Caribbean was Cuba, with ** percent. It was followed by Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador, with approximately ** percent of GDP spent on healthcare, each. Meanwhile, Haiti and Guyana reported the lowest health spending relative to its GDP in the region that year, which reached the equivalent of around ***** percent.