How much do Americans spend on medical care and insurance?

The lack of socialised medical care in America has often been decried here, but how much do Americans actually spend on medical matters? And of that, how many have insurance and how much in premiums do they pay? GQ answers only please.

For comparison, in 2005 the U.K. spent £94B on the NHS and £18B on private care. Cite. Since only 8% pay for private health insurance and healthcare, that’s about £1600 per person for the NHS and £3750 for private.

I think the last time I was told a specific number for total health care costs per person it was about US$5500/year/person

The thing about insurance is that most people who carry medical insurance do so as a benefit provided by their employer. In many cases, most or all of the premium is paid by the employer as well. So it’s hard to quantify how much each person is paying in premiums.

Mr. Athena and I are both self-employed, which means we are responsible for our own medical insurance. We pay $350/month for coverage that supposedly will cover 100% of everything after we pay the deductible, which is something like $3800/year. There are definitely things that are excluded - a normal pregnancy, for example, is not covered (an abnormal pregnancy would be).

Given that we’re (thank God) reasonably healthy, we never hit the deductible in a year, so in practice we pay for all our medical care. Mr. Athena is on medication for high blood pressure and the generic (ie, cheap) drugs give him a nasty cough, so we shell out $70/month for the name brand drugs. We each probably end up at the doctor a couple times a year (mostly allergy related stuff) and that comes to about $100 each visit.

So altogether, figure ~$5500/year for the two of us. It is all tax-deductible, so in real money it’s probably only about ~4K out of pocket. But hell, that’s not chump change. Also note that when I went from being an employee to self-employed, I definitely set my hourly rate high enough that it made up the difference between employer-provided health care and having to pay for it myself.

Plus figure in that our monthly deductibles increase about 25-30% a year. We counter that by changing health insurance providers every few years, but if we were to get seriously ill, I don’t think we could do that.

None if this includes dental or eye care - we have no insurance for that, we just pay out of pocket.

We are very hopeful that at some point, we’ll get socialized medicine in this country, but I’m not holding my breath.

Americans also pay into a gov’t fund that covers medical expenses when they reach a certain age (65?). This should also probably be counted, though again part of the money is paid by their employer, so I’m not sure how you’d factor that in.

The website of the National Coalition on Health Care says that health expenditures were $7,600 per person in 2007. (The website attributes that number to a study from Health Affairs called, “Health Spending Projections Through 2016: Modest Changes Obscure Part D’s Impact.”)

138.00 per month for blue cross blue shield. No dental, no Optic, bare bones plan. I am 28 in perfect health with no preexisting conditions, and have not made a claim in 3 years. They do raise it every year like clockwork though. My deductible is ludicrously high though, something like 8000.00. On a below 30K income that amount is not inconsiderable every month.

A Wikipedia article on health care in the US says $7,439 per capita in 2007, based on numbers from the Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (The actual PDF document is here.)

Interesting figures. From what’s been said, everyone over 65 has state-funded healthcare, but what proportion of those younger have healthcare?

Well, everyone, both younger and older than 65, can get healthcare. (If you show up at an emergency room, they aren’t going to deny needed care based on inability to pay.) So are you asking what proportion of those younger than 65 are uninsured?

Comparative WHO stats (see pages 84 – 90): http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS08_Full.pdf

It should be pointed out that Medicare does not provide free medical care. The patient still has to pay for a certain percentage and deductibles.

That’s particularly helpful, thank you.

My father pays for supplemental coverage for this very reason. When my mom got cancer, I believe he paid $20 out of pocket. Without the supplemental, it would have been many thousands of dollars.

My SIL and BIL retired early, and their health insurance is $1700/month for the two of them.

My wife and I are self-employed, non-smokers in our mid 30s, and pay $270/mo total (a UK firm) for the both of us to be covered. Deductible is $2000/yr. This covers us everywhere in the world except the USA, up to $10 million.

I think you need to be a bit careful about the NHS/private split, since I think a lot of stuff would still end up hitting the NHS even if you are insured - even if you pay privately to see a doctor for diagnosis, the big-ticket stuff like cancer, kidney failure, chronic ilness etc. is often excluded.
“Private” in the UK often means just smoothing the rough edges off the basic NHS system, so you might end up with e.g. £1400+£3750 for private.

Similarly, don’t forget that everyone in the US who is paying for insurance is also contributing towards medicare, medicaid and other government programs, so you need to add that on to the numbers quoted. In terms of proportion of national income, I believe the US goverment spends almost as much on social medicine as the UK.

Here’s a link to a recent article in the Canadian magazine, Macleans: Good health, for less: We’re much healthier than Americans, even though we pay half as much for health care.

The gist of the article is that Americans are estimated to spend almost double the per capita amount that Canadians do, including both public and private expenditures:

However, that increased expenditure doesn’t buy Americans better health than Canadians, on average:

The article notes that there are life-style differences that come into play. Canadians tend to have healthier diets, eat less, and get more exercise. But the Canadian public health system also plays a significant role.

The article notes that the health rates for well-insured Americans tend to stack up well against the average health rates for Canadians. What pulls the US overall health rate down is the uninsured and under-insured Americans:

$48/mo. for a Blue Cross dental PPO; $152/mo. for their medical, with a high deductible.