US Healthcare Performance, Spending, and the Impact of Recent Trump-Era Reforms

The United States ranks near the bottom of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group of 38 wealthy countries on life expectancy, posting 76.5 years compared with the group average of 80.5 years. In a World Economic Forum study of 19 affluent nations, the U.S. placed last for infant survival to age one. The Commonwealth Fund’s “mortality amenable to healthcare” benchmark, which measures whether people with treatable conditions receive life-saving care, also puts the United States at the lowest position among 11 rich countries, with the United Kingdom situated near the middle of the same group.

iNews

OECD data show U.S. per-capita health-care spending at roughly $14,885 (about £10,979) per year—more than double the average among wealthy nations and about 60 % higher than the next-largest spender, Switzerland. By contrast, the United Kingdom spends about $6,747 (? £4,976) per person. Despite this high outlay, the Commonwealth Fund’s 2024 ranking of ten wealthy countries found the United States the worst performer on most measures of access, efficiency, and health outcomes.

iNews

Donald Trump’s legislation, dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” was enacted last summer and is slated to take effect in January 2027. The bill will reduce federal subsidies for health-insurance premiums and tighten eligibility for Medicaid, a change projected to push the uninsured count from roughly 26 million (the figure when Trump returned to office in 2025) to about 30 million. Trump has asserted that the reforms will lower overall costs, but economists attribute the opposite effect: forcing people off insurance drives them to expensive emergency-room care, which in turn raises fees for all patients.

iNews

The fragmented U.S. system—military and veteran hospitals, private insurers, Medicare for seniors, and Medicaid for low-income residents—creates extensive duplication. Estimates indicate that 25 % to 35 % of health-care spending goes to administrative tasks, whereas the U.K.’s National Health Service allocates roughly 1 % of its health budget to administration. The complexity forces many medical practices to staff larger billing departments than clinical ones, inflating overhead without improving patient care.

iNews

The combination of high spending, poor health outcomes, expanding uninsured rates, and heavy administrative burdens suggests that the United States is not achieving value for its health-care investment. Critics argue that the profit-driven structure of U.S. insurers, which can deny claims and impose narrow networks, exacerbates these inefficiencies. Without legislative changes that align incentives with public health—such as proposals to price drugs at the average level of other advanced nations—patients may continue to face double financial burdens: premiums plus uncovered medical bills, as illustrated by a recent case in which a highway-crash victim incurred a $490,000 hospital charge that her insurer declined to pay.

iNews