Do people in the US spend more or less money on healthcare than people in other countries, and how is that spending changing?

Background: Health insurance has been in the news a lot lately. Some people think that costs for the new Affordable Care Act in the US are expensive. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) collects data to see how spending on health care compares across the world. The graph below shows data for 13 industrialized countries including the US to compare how much each person spends, on average, in a year. The graph also shows how this spending is changing through time.

Note: The 13 industrialized countries shown in the graph with abbreviations are: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States

International Comparison of Spending on Health, 1980–2009: Average spending on health per capita (all standardized to US Dollars)

(data source: Chartpack from: ; citing data from OECD Health Data 2011 (Nov. 2011).