U.S. Has the Worst Health Care? Not by a Long Shot

• Published in: Policy File 2014
• Main Author: Pipes, Sally C
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cascade Policy Institute; Health care policy

Few complaints about the U.S. health care system are as common as the claim that we spend too much on health care and get too little for all that spending in return -- especially compared to other industrialized nations. A new Commonwealth Fund report is the latest to indict U.S. health care. It pegs the American system dead last in a survey of 11 developed countries. But like virtually every other study that trashes the U.S. health care system, Commonwealth's rankings rely on questionable assumptions, like giving weight to those systems that treat people equally rather than well. At the same time, Commonwealth ignores the problems that countries with socialized health care systems have actually treating people once they're sick. And on that metric -- that is, actually delivering care to those who need it -- the United States is without peer. The Commonwealth Fund study ignores massive problems with actual access to care in the countries it heralds. Every citizen of a country with socialized medicine may have insurance. But that doesn't mean they can get the care they need.