U.S. health care ranked lower than most

Thinking About Health
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    One thing I haven’t heard much in this latest health care debate is that the U.S. has the best health system in the world. That’s different from the last two times around.
    When the nation debated the Clinton health plan in 1994 and the Affordable Care Act in 2009-2010, a huge talking point for politicians and special business interests opposed to reform was, “The American system is so good — why change it?”
    It’s different this year. Maybe that’s because the public realizes America doesn’t have the best, and their own interactions with what American health care has become tell them a different story. The old talking point doesn’t compute any more.
    Of course, we’ve all had some good experiences. And we generally continue to believe that the money we spend on super expensive technology and medicines equates to good care, even though evidence shows those costly interventions may not deliver as advertised and actually may be harmful.
    However, taken as a whole and measured on several dimensions, including access to care, administrative efficiency, equity and health outcomes, the U.S. compares poorly relative to other industrialized countries.
    In its latest study comparing the U.S. with 10 other countries — the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Canada and France — the U.S. ranks dead last. This is the sixth time since 2004 that The Commonwealth Fund, which supports Thinking About Health columns, has done such a survey.
    “Each time, we have managed to be last,” says Eric Schneider, a senior vice president of the Fund.

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