> Do you consider the amount that the US spends per capita on healthcare relative to other countries for the same standard of care a "failure" of the healthcare industry?

That we spend more per capita for approximately the same level of care as most other first world countries is certainly annoying. But sometimes I think we are too focused on that and not putting enough effort into trying to stop the cost from increasing.

I think increasing costs are a more serious problem because the problem of spending so much more than the others is a US problem. That suggests it is just something we are doing wrong, and by making our system more like some of those others we can fix it.

The problem of rising costs also plagues those other countries, and to about the same extent as it does the US. That suggests it is a much harder problem to solve.

Here are some examples of rising costs per capita.

How much costs per capita went up from 2000 to 2018: US 2.3x, Germany 2.1x, France 1.8x, Canada 2.0x, Italy 1.7x, Japan 2.6x, and UK 2.6x.

Costs per capita in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 divided by 1970 costs:

     1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
  US  3.2  8.2 13.9 24.1 36.3
  UK  3.1  6.3 15.3 27.8 40.5
  FR  3.4  7.6 14.9 21.1 28.5

Here's the ratio of each given year to the cost 10 years earlier:

     1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
  US  3.2  2.6  1.7  1.7  1.5
  UK  3.1  2.0  2.4  1.8  1.5
  FR  3.4  2.2  2.0  1.4  1.4

Data source: https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

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