Are the high costs of health care in the U.S. worth it?

Despite spending more on health care than any other country, the U.S. has health outcomes that are not much better—and in many cases, are worse—than other countries.

In a May 20, 2019 New York Times article, Austin Frakt, adjunct associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, examined the factors affecting health costs in the U.S. and whether such high levels of spending are worth it.

Frakt discussed the work of David Cutler, professor in the Department of Global Health and Population, whose research has compared the life-lengthening benefits of the health system with what it costs. One of Cutler’s studies found that each additional year of life gained between 1960 and 2000 that was attributed to the health system cost nearly $20,000, but when focused on the same gain for only 65-year-olds, the average cost jumped to approximately $85,000.

Read The New York Times article: Is Our Health Care Spending Worth It?