Despite Americans paying nearly double that of other nations, the US fares poorly in list of 10 countries

The United States health system ranked dead last in an international comparison of 10 peer nations, according to a new report by the Commonwealth Fund.

In spite of Americans paying nearly double that of other countries, the system performed poorly on health equity, access to care and outcomes.

“I see the human toll of these shortcomings on a daily basis,” said Dr Joseph Betancourt, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation with a focus on healthcare research and policy.

The fund said the US would need to expand insurance coverage and make “meaningful” improvements on the amount of healthcare expenses patients pay themselves; minimize the complexity and variation in insurance plans to improve administrative efficiency; build a viable primary care and public health system; and invest in social wellbeing, rather than thrust problems of social inequity onto the health system.

  • rusticus@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Not defending the broken US healthcare system but this article is shit when it includes firearm deaths and opioid overdoses into its metrics to grade the overall healthcare system.

    • skuzz
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      2 months ago

      Those are both mental health issues, as well as the latter being failure of the medical system to limit access. (As well as the unrelated easy access to firearms issue.)

      Mental healthcare in the US is terrible by itself, and is under the healthcare umbrella.