Here’s a good news story in the lead-up to this year’s Federal Election: Australia’s health system has been ranked 7th most efficient in the world in a new survey by Bloomberg.
The survey ranked countries based on three criteria: life expectancy; relative per capita cost of health care (percentage of GDP per capita); and the absolute per capita cost of health care (expenditures covering preventive and curative services, family planning, nutrition and emergency aid). The survey only included countries with populations of at least five million, life expectancy of at least 70 years and GDP per capita of at least $5,000.
The rankings are provided below:
As you can see, Asian nations dominated this years rankings, taking the top three spots. Australia scores best in the Anglosphere, ranking ahead of the UK (14th), Canada (17th) and the United States (46th). Unfortunately, rankings for New Zealand or Ireland are not shown due to their small size.
The US’ ranking is something of a national disgrace. Dispite its immense cost – 17.2% of GDP or $US8,608 per capita – it achieves relatively poor outcomes, with life expectancy of only 78.6 years.
