US Health System Ranks Last Compared To Other Countries

“Our failure to ensure health insurance for all and encourage stable, long-term ties between physicians and patients shows in our poor performance on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and health outcomes.” In “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care”, the study focused on interviews with physicians and patients in Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United States who were asked to speak about their experiences and views on their health systems. The US ranked last in most areas, including access to health care, patient safety, timeliness of care, efficiency and equity. Americans were also last in terms of whether they had a regular physician. “The US spends twice what the average industrialized country spends on health care but we’re clearly not getting value for the money,” Davis told AFP. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/15/1198/

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