U.S. health care system: Worst in the world?

A Commonwealth Fund study concludes that American care ranks first in cost and last in performance among seven industrialized nations

The US health system: Worse than the rest?
(Image credit: Getty)

Get ready for more heated debate about health care: A new study says the U.S. spends twice as much as six other industrialized nations on care, but gets the worst results. The U.S. health system, which cost $7,290 per person in 2007, ranked "last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives," according to the report by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private foundation focused on health. The Netherlands, where the universal health care system spends $3,837 per person annually, had the best care. Does the U.S. really have the worst health system, or is the study biased in favor of socialized medicine?

There's no denying America lags behind: "Years ago, the World Health Organization came out with a ranking of health systems that placed the US 37th," says Ezra Klein in The Washington Post. And while there's been much controversy over that ranking, it's pointless to refute the Commonwealth Fund's findings. This isn't a broadside from some outsider — the ratings come from our own patients and doctors. And, "here, too, the U.S. underperforms."

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