There are strategies to improve healthcare, but US isn’t trying them.
An updated analysis comparing healthcare systems across 20 countries finds once again that the US system is an outstandingly poor performer, summarized as being a “persistent failure” for its high costs, poor health outcomes, and premature deaths.
“Americans pay more for health care, get less in return, and remain far more exposed to illness, debt, and insecurity than their peers,” the report concludes.
The report comes from The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation focused on healthcare system performance, which periodically conducts such comparative analyses. The new report is based on 2024 data and compares the US to 19 countries, including many in Europe, as well as Australia, Canada, Chile, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
As has long been the case, the US spends far more on healthcare than any other of the 19 countries. In 2024, the US spent 18 percent of its gross domestic product on healthcare, nearly twice the average of all the countries, which was 9.3 percent. The second-highest spender after the US was Germany, with 12.3 percent.
Drilling down, the US spends far more on care per person than other countries and spends more on prescription medications. Americans are, by far, the most likely to skip medications, treatments, tests, and consultations due to costs.
US life expectancy at birth ranked third lowest, at 79 years, while the average was 81.2 years. Only Turkey and Mexico had lower life expectancies, which were 77.3 and 75.5, respectively. The highest life expectancies were in Spain (84 years), Japan (84.1 years), and Switzerland (84.3 years).
...read more at arstechnica.com
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Did any of the other countries receive critiques of just the US? Haha.
Canada's healthcare system is pretty bad.
I didn't read the study, just the news. Everyone can do better, but the US is the absolute worst in almost every metric, and it feels like they don't even care to improve.
I will say this. When I told my wife's family in the US how long we had to wait for a family doctor, what the wait time to see specialists and to get specialized testing done they were utterly shocked.
I don't take these types of studies very seriously because they are usually politically motivated. I am sure there are many issues with the US system with soaring costs and unaffordability being chief among them but I have seen first hand the cost of perpetually underfunded, strained socialized medicine. Both my wife and mother waited over a year for necessary major surgeries, meanwhile in the US my father in law was having heart issues and within a week he had seen a cardiologist, undergone all necessary tests and was on an operating table having a pacemaker put in. Unless you were dying and need emergency surgery that would have taken minimum 6 months in Canada.
I’m no expert on the US healthcare system, but I bet the vast majority can't afford the kind of care your father-in-law got. In Canada, just like in Portugal, things move way slower if you don't have insurance and use the public system, but you still get treated—even if sometimes it’s too late. But I think that’s the exception, not the rule.
I asked AI and it said 66% of Americans have private healthcare coverage. So I guess the remainder fall under medicare and there are a lot of cracks in the system.
Nice try. Our system is the most expensive and we're the sickest people in human history.
I just go by what I know. Everyone I know in the US seems to get pretty good healthcare. Meanwhile in Canada people I know waiting around hoping not to die before getting tests/treatments they need.
It's definitely true that availability of tests and acute care is pretty good down here.
"Stupidly expensive with pathetic outcomes" describes everything the US government meddles with.