The United States spends “significantly less” on long-term care than other countries despite spending “significantly more” on healthcare overall, according to a brief published Friday by the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker.
Long-term care in the study included health and social services provided in nursing homes as well as in home- and community-based settings.
According to the analysis, long-term care is the only category in which the United States spends less than most comparable countries on a per-person basis. The United States on average spent $924 per capita in 2021 compared with $1,301 per capita in comparable countries. Other countries included in the study were Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Spending on long-term care in the United States increased a bit in 2019 and 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Health System Tracker. US spending on long-term care declined by 4.9% between 2020 and 2021, however, according to the data. That’s compared with the 4.3% growth experienced in comparable countries between 2020 and 2021.
“Long-term care spending was already lower in the US than in peer countries before the pandemic,” according to the brief.
Long-term care spending accounted for the third-smallest category of healthcare spending in the United States in 2021, at 7.6% of overall healthcare spending, according to the study. In comparable countries, long-term care spending represented the second-largest category of spending, at 20% of overall healthcare spending.
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