The New Zealand Healthcare System

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In comparison to other developed nations, the United States spends more of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health care expenses than any other nation. In 2009, the US spent 16% of its GDP on the health care industry. This represents nearly double the amount spent by other OECD nations (an average of 8.7%) and came in 40 percent higher than the next highest nation, France, which had an 11.2% of GDP outlays on health care expenditures. If we examine these costs at an individual level the US spent $7,538 per capita (per person) on health care. This was more than double the OECD median for expenditures which was $2,995. Again the next highest nations were considerably less than the US, with Norway and Switzerland spending less than two-thirds the amount of the US ($5,003 for Norway and $4,627 for Switzerland). Of the remaining twelve OECD nations in all but two the spending per capita was less than fifty percent of that of the US. In New Zealand the amount per capita was nearly one-third of the US at $2,683 (Squires, 2011).
The comparison of expenditures by itself demonstrates an environment where growth is occurring in what should be a non-growth oriented industry. As costs for health care rise investment and growth in other areas will continue to stagnate. A troubling parallel aspect of the health care environment is that along with rising costs there is a significant lack of coverage for millions of Americans. The US not only leads OECD nations in expenses per person but also leads the other nations in terms of citizens without basic health care coverage (Blank, 2012).
The US has a divided system of health care coverage. Based on statistics from 2008, a majority of Americans, 60 percen...

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