U.S. healthcare system ranking revealed and compared internationally, it isn’t good

Science Recorder ^ | 06/18/2014 | James Fluere

[SeekAndFind]

If you could pick any healthcare system in the world, it probably wouldn’t be the U.S.’s. According to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund, titled “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, 2014 Update: How the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally,” the U.S healthcare system is the most costly in the world, but it ranks poorly compared to other countries on most measures of performance.

Among the 11 nations assessed by The Commonwealth Fund — Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the U.S. — the U.S. ranks last, as it did in four previous editions of the report. In this edition of the report, the UK ranks first, followed closely by Switzerland.

Unlike the U.S., five other nations in this report ensure the accessibility of care through universal health systems. Obamacare is increasing the number of Americans with coverage and enhancing access to care, but the data in this report are from years prior to the full implementation of the law.

The report also reveals that the U.S. ranks behind most countries on many measures of health outcomes, quality and efficiency. Other countries have spearheaded the adoption of modern health information systems, but U.S. doctors and hospitals are catching up as they react to major monetary incentives to switch to new health information technology systems.

Although all countries show the need for improvement, the report notes that the other 10 countries spend much less on healthcare per person and as a percent of gross domestic product than does the U.S.

Image credit: The Commonwealth Fund

[ConservingFreedom]

Of the report's criteria, "access" and "equity" are thinly-veiled socialism - while "healthy lives" depends much less on the medical system than om individual choices, which too many Americans make poorly while assuming it's someone else's responsibility to clean up the mess.

[Uncle Miltie]

Disaggregate the results to find that we are merely insufficiently socialist in their opinion.

[Izzy Dunne]

How many illegal Mexican aliens pour over the border into Switzerland?

[SeekAndFind]

From the COMMONWEALTH FUND's REPORT :

Major Findings

• Quality: The indicators of quality were grouped into four categories: effective care, safe care, coordinated care, and patient-centered care. Compared with the other 10 countries, the U.S. fares best on provision and receipt of preventive and patient-centered care. While there has been some improvement in recent years, lower scores on safe and coordinated care pull the overall U.S. quality score down. Continued adoption of health information technology should enhance the ability of U.S. physicians to identify, monitor, and coordinate care for their patients, particularly those with chronic conditions.
• Access: Not surprisingly—given the absence of universal coverage—people in the U.S. go without needed health care because of cost more often than people do in the other countries. Americans were the most likely to say they had access problems related to cost. Patients in the U.S. have rapid access to specialized health care services; however, they are less likely to report rapid access to primary care than people in leading countries in the study. In other countries, like Canada, patients have little to no financial burden, but experience wait times for such specialized services. There is a frequent misperception that trade-offs between universal coverage and timely access to specialized services are inevitable; however, the Netherlands, U.K., and Germany provide universal coverage with low out-of-pocket costs while maintaining quick access to specialty services. 
• Efficiency: On indicators of efficiency, the U.S. ranks last among the 11 countries, with the U.K. and Sweden ranking first and second, respectively. The U.S. has poor performance on measures of national health expenditures and administrative costs as well as on measures of administrative hassles, avoidable emergency room use, and duplicative medical testing. Sicker survey respondents in the U.K. and France are less likely to visit the emergency room for a condition that could have been treated by a regular doctor, had one been available. 
• Equity: The U.S. ranks a clear last on measures of equity. Americans with below-average incomes were much more likely than their counterparts in other countries to report not visiting a physician when sick; not getting a recommended test, treatment, or follow-up care; or not filling a prescription or skipping doses when needed because of costs. On each of these indicators, one-third or more lower-income adults in the U.S. said they went without needed care because of costs in the past year. 
• Healthy lives: The U.S. ranks last overall with poor scores on all three indicators of healthy lives—mortality amenable to medical care, infant mortality, and healthy life expectancy at age 60. The U.S. and U.K. had much higher death rates in 2007 from conditions amenable to medical care than some of the other countries, e.g., rates 25 percent to 50 percent higher than Australia and Sweden. Overall, France, Sweden, and Switzerland rank highest on healthy lives.

Summary and Implications

The U.S. ranks last of 11 nations overall. Findings in this report confirm many of those in the earlier four editions of Mirror, Mirror, with the U.S. still ranking last on indicators of efficiency, equity, and outcomes. The U.K. continues to demonstrate strong performance and ranked first overall, though lagging notably on health outcomes. Switzerland, which was included for the first time in this edition, ranked second overall. In the subcategories, the U.S. ranks higher on preventive care, and is strong on waiting times for specialist care, but weak on access to needed services and ability to obtain prompt attention from primary care physicians. Any attempt to assess the relative performance of countries has inherent limitations. These rankings summarize evidence on measures of high performance based on national mortality data and the perceptions and experiences of patients and physicians. They do not capture important dimensions of effectiveness or efficiency that might be obtained from medical records or administrative data. Patients’ and physicians’ assessments might be affected by their experiences and expectations, which could differ by country and culture.

[Nachum]

Figures never lie, but liars figure.

[ConservingFreedom]

Like I said: Of the report's criteria, "access" and "equity" are thinly-veiled socialism - while "healthy lives" depends much less on the medical system than om individual choices, which too many Americans make poorly while assuming it's someone else's responsibility to clean up the mess.

[Organic Panic]

WOW. You would think there are bodies lining the streets stacked like fire wood. The fact is NO ONE is denied care, unless you are in the VA system.

This study just wants to point out that it’s not “free” here in the USA. And Obamacare does ZERO to fix the health care costs and expand coverage. All it did was expand coverage to expensive useless crony health insurance that is now required by force of law.

This study is the same as Eric Holder investigating the DOJ and concluding, “nothing to see here folks, everything is just great.”

The p

[PapaNew]

As Mark Twain once said, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damnable lies, and statistics.

The truth is before the 1970's when the federal government began meddling into healthcare, our healthcare was affordable and the best in the world. It still is the best in the world, but as usual, government interference has created cost problems.

The answer, of course, is to nuke socialism, and let our healthcare (and the rest of our economy) be run by the voluntary the free market economy which will provide competitive prices and quality and maximum supply, easily the best in the world.

[pallis]

Another couple of years with Obamacare, and the US won’t make the chart. Mexico will bump us out.

[Mister Da]

The UK is rated #1, yet there are stories there every week of patients lying dead on gurneys for days in hospital hallways w/o anyone noticing, patients calling family for food & water, & patients in pain pulling their own teeth for lack of a timely appointment.

I have never heard of such poor treatment in the US.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

This report derives from a 2012 WHO report.

In much of Europe, a baby who dies before 3 days after birth is counted as “stillborn”. Think that might affect the numbers?

What is the cost for a hospital stay for a crack-addicted mother who arrives at the emergency room in labor in, say Saudi Arabia versus the US. Because KSAs’ numbers are better than the US for maternal mortality.

A crack-addicted woman arriving at a KSA hospital would undergo the application of either a sword decapitating her or in some cases an AK-47 bullet to the head. That’s free, or maybe 13 cents.

In the US, such a delivery could easily cost $1 million, including post-natal care. Because care cannot be refused.

Dozens and dozens of these types of factors affect the outcomes.

[cuban leaf]

Funny. Canadians with mondy pick the US.

[stubernx98]

Total BS, Don;t get sick in the UK, or Norway. I experienced both and both are at least 20 years behind in tech. US, 1 day to get an MRI, Canada 21 days, UK months.

Of course the US is going down fast with all the gonvernment interference(example - tax on medical devices). thre is no service the government can provide that is better than the private sector. Reason: Private sector people have a choice. govermnet - no choice.

People who lead government are “Influencers” who get their ego satisfactionout of controlling other people - (Politicians, Lawyers(should be banned from government) Journalists, and many preachers.

[Steely Tom]

For those of you who might be wondering what in the world is sciencerecorder.com...

The Editor-in-Chief of Sciencerecorder.com is an individual named "Kramer Phillips." Mr. Phillips does not have a Wiki page. I did find this, however:

Kramer Phillips is back ... this time as 'The Petri Dish'

PCMedia

8/24/12

Jim DraindownLevel 1

Feb 24

This thread needs updating.

Kramer Phillips has operated many sites for the purpose of spamming Google News science section, starting with the State Column:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/news/3Ef3bpP9Z9k/cyF0Jq-HKWYJ

Then the Bunsen Burner:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/news/bunsen$20burner/news/99-fEdhiETc/hWKcUHR_kTAJ

And The Petri Dish etc etc. These days rather than republishing articles many times on one site, he operates several sites at once to give him more time in the spotlight. At the moment he's using:

thespacereporter.com
ScienceRecorder.com
natmonitor.com

And he's brought back the State Column but with a different address statecolumn.com

And no doubt even more sites soon.

Same as before he says he has a large staff of writers, most probably all of them are made up - they are the only journalists ever who have no Twitter accounts or blogs or websites . Every article has a large number of faked Facebook likes as soon as it is published - all the old Kramer tricks. To be fair his stuff is no worse than many of the semi-literate SEO sites you find on GN.

He's calling his two-man-band operation KPR Media these days. 0 0

[TurboZamboni]

Obama has a pen and a phone.

Kramer has a computer and fax machine.

[jdege]

The biggest problem with our health care isn’t our healthcare, it’s our diet. Which sucks.

And the purported “healthy” diet that our public health practitioners have been pushing on us for the last forty years. Which is worse.

Damned-near everyone is sick, because there’s no profit in healthy people. And they’re sick from eating processed industrial food-like substances, because there’s no profit in real food.

[Steely Tom]

The biggest problem with our health care isn’t our healthcare, it’s our diet. Which sucks.

And the purported “healthy” diet that our public health practitioners have been pushing on us for the last forty years. Which is worse.

Damned-near everyone is sick, because there’s no profit in healthy people. And they’re sick from eating processed industrial food-like substances, because there’s no profit in real food.

This is why the U.S. life expectancy was 71.96 years back in 1974 (forty years ago) and is now 78.64 years, right?

[teeman8r]

i’ve never had mondy... is it treatable?

[Nifster]

And ANYONE who thinks that health care is better in the UK hasn’t bothered to read any news from there. Even Canadians come across the border to get care because of their doctor shortages. What a joke piece of ‘research’