Does the U.S. have the best health care?
How Does the Quality of U.S. Health Care Compare Internationally?
By Elizabeth Docteur and Robert A. Berenson
Urban Institute
August 2009
This brief brings together available evidence on how quality of care in the United States compares to that of other countries and comments on the implications of the evidence for the health reform debate. By exploring how the quality of our care compares internationally, we can address the underlying attitudes and concerns that people have about health reform.
While the evidence base is incomplete and suffers from other limitations, it does not provide support for the oft-repeated claim that the “U.S. health care is the best in the world.” In fact, there is no hard evidence that identifies particular areas in which U.S. health care quality is truly exceptional.
Instead, the picture that emerges from the information available on technical quality and related aspects of health system performance is a mixed bag, with the United States doing relatively well in some areas — such as cancer care — and less well in others — such as mortality from conditions amenable to prevention and treatment. Many Americans would be surprised by the findings from studies showing that U.S. health care is not clearly superior to that received by Canadians, and that in some respects Canadian care has been shown to be of higher quality.
Like other countries, the United States has been found to have both strengths and weaknesses in terms of the quality of care available, and the quality of care the population receives. The main ways in which the United States differs from other developed countries are in the very high costs of its health care and the share of its population that is uninsured.
http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/qualityquickstrikeaug2009.pdf
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
This paper (14 pages) brings together numerous credible studies on the quality of health care in the United States, as compared with other nations. Anyone reading this message already knows that the United States is paying enough for exceptional care for everyone, but many of us are not receiving it. On average, our health care is mediocre.
This resource can be useful in informing those who would reject efforts at reform because we already have “the best health care in the world.” It would be a shame if we continued to waste funds to preserve a system that provides high quality care for a few when an improved financing system would enable us to improve the allocation of those funds so that we could provide high quality care for everyone.