Money  /  Visualization

The History of Health Care Spending in 7 Graphs

Health care spending grew more slowly in the past two years than it has in over five decades.
Washington Post

Back in 1970s, the United States looked a lot like other countries when it came to health care spending. In 1980, we spent $1,110 per person on health care, which worked out to about 9.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product. But in the 1980s, health-care costs in the United States began growing much faster than in other countries, rising to $8,402 per person in 2010. That amounts to a total of $2.54 billion spent on health care, or 17.9 percent of our total economy.