Original publisher: [Washington, D.C.]: Executive Office of the President, Council of Economic Advisers, [2009] OCLC Number: (OCoLC)402520312 Subject: Health care reform -- Economic aspects -- United States. Excerpt: ... 10 International comparisons. The first set of comparisons is international. We devote a far larger share of our GDP to health care than other developed countries, but we do not achieve 26 better health outcomes. Figure 8 shows the fraction of GDP devoted to health care in a number of developed countries in 2006. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD ), the United States spent 15.3 percent of its GDP on health care in 2006. The next highest country was Switzerland, with 11.3 percent. In most other high-income countries, the share was less than 10 percent. Figure 8: International Comparison of Health Care Spending as a Share of GDP, 2006 United States Switzerland France Germany Belgium Portugal Austria Canada Netherlands Denmark Sweden Greece Iceland Italy Australia Norway UK Spain Hungary Finland Japan New Zealand Ireland Slovak Republic Luxembourg Czech Republic Mexico Korea Poland Turkey 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD Health Data, 2008 ( Paris: OECD, 2008 ). Note: For countries not reporting 2006 data, data from previous years is substituted. Figures 9a and 9b show female and male life expectancy in the same group of countries. The data show that life expectancy in the United States is lower than in any other high-income country - and many middle-income countries. The same result holds if one looks at infant mortality: despite the high share of health care expenditures in the United States, our infant mortality rate is substantially above that of other developed countries. Of course, many factors other than health care expenditures may affect life expectancy and infant mortality rates, including demographics, lifestyle behaviors, income ine...