Chapter 2

Figure 2 – Division of health expenditure per capita between public and private
sectors (2004)
US$ PPP
6.000
4.000
2.000
0
6.102
5.089
United States
Luxembourg**
4.077
3.966
3.331
3.165
Switzerland**
Norway
Iceland**
Canada**
France**
Austria
Belgium*
Netherlands**
Germany*
Australia*
Sweden**
Ireland
* 2003 ** Forecast
Countries ranked by (decreasing) levels of total health expenditure per capita (US$ PPP)
For Denmark only total per capita health expenditure data is available
Source: OECD Health Data 2006, June 2006
3.159
3.124
3.044
3.041
3.005
2.876
2.825
United Kingdom
Italy
Japan*,**
Finland
Greece**
Spain**
Private Health Expediture
[45]
New Zeland
Portugal**
Czech Rep.**
Hungary **
Korea
Poland
Slovakia*
Mexico
Turkey
Public Health Expediture
capita income and per capita health expenditure (Figure 3).
In the same way, there are differences in per capita expenditure on health among countries
that have the same proportion of GDP assigned to the health system. For example,
both Greece and France spent about 10,0% of GDP on health in 2004, with a slight
increase from 2000 (Figure 4), but per capita health expenditure in Greece was significantly
below that in France (in comparison with previous years, the difference is decreasing).
Variation in expenditure is also due to different combinations of price and quality in
the provision of health care. Though expenditure in the United States is substantially
higher than elsewhere, the volume of assistance offered is comparable with that in other
OECD countries 9 .
1.1.4 The public sector as the principal instrument for the financing of
health expenditure
Even in countries with a system of universal coverage, one finds a significant recourse to
private expenditure, one that depends on the size of the gap in the services the public
9 See Docteur et al. (2003).
2.596
2.546
2.392
2.249
2.235
2.162
2.094
2.083
1.813
1.361
1.323
1.149
805
777
662
CEIS Health Report 2006
580