Improving Health Care: Affordability, Access, and Innovation

The United States has long been Number 1 worldwide in healthcare spending.In 2023, U.S. healthcare spending totaled $4.9 trillion, or 18% of our nation's GDP.That translates into almost $15,000 per capita-double the average of other developed countries and two-thirds higher than Switzerland, the next highest spender (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2024;Wager et al., 2025).The return on this massive investment is unimpressive, to say the least.At the population level, the U.S. consistently ranks at or near the bottom among developed nations in key health metrics, such as infant mortality, prevalence of chronic disease, life expectancy, and preventable mortality (Puthumana, Grogan, & Bai, 2025).In fairness, these metrics are affected by many factors beyond health care, and there are other performance measures on which the U.S. does better.