U.S. health care system the most expensive in the world ... but comes in dead last in almost any measure of performance

U.S. health care is bad for your health | César Chelala | Sunday, June 3, 2007

One of the most contentious issues of the U.S. presidential campaign will be how to fix what many agree is a malfunctional health-care system. Adding fuel to the fire is a study published last month detailing the shortcomings of U.S. health care when compared to the systems of other developed countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

The study, entitled "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care," released by the Commonwealth Fund in New York, finds that not only is the U.S. health care system the most expensive in the world (double that of the next most costly comparator country, Canada) but comes in dead last in almost any measure of performance.

Although U.S. political leaders are fond of stating that we have the best health-care system in the world, they fail to acknowledge an important caveat: It is the best only for the very rich. For the rest of the population, its deficits far outweigh its advantages. ...
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...Although the most notable way in which the United States differs from the other countries is in the absence of universal coverage, the United States is also last on dimensions of access, patient safety, efficiency and equity.

... The United States spends $7,000 per person per year on health care, almost double that of Australia, Canada and Germany, each of which achieve better results on health status indicators than the United States. ...
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... In a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, from the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health stated, "The U.S. health-care system is considered a dysfunctional mess." Given the seriousness of the situation, this is an understatement.