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Figure18-7Rising Health Care Costs Since 1960, U.S. health care spending as a percentage of GDP, a measure of total income, has risen about 350%. While similar trends can be seen in other countries, in Canada health care spending as a percentage of GDP rose just over 200% during this same period. Most analysts believe that the main force behind this trend is medical progress: we spend more on health care because more medical problems are treatable.