It’s no secret that rural Americans don’t have enough options when it comes to health care. In fact, life expectancies for rural Americans have been dropping. Meanwhile, rural Americans are at more likely to die from each of the five leading causes of death in America.
But,according to a new report in POLITICO,America’s health care struggles aren’t limited to rural regions. The U.S. pays three times as much per citizen as the average of other wealthy nations. In fact, the United States pays far more per citizen than the second-highest spender, Switzerland.
As POLITICO has discovered, the American health care crisis is large part a result of a lack of spending on social services. The U.S. ranks in the bottom 10 among developed countries when it comes to spending on services like education, housing, and food assistance. And when it comes to the long-term health of rural residents, those services may be even more important.