America’s health care system is failing, a shocking new report finds.
The US ranks worst among the 10 developed countries in critical areas of health care, including prevention of death, access (mainly due to high costs) and ensuring treatment of value for everyone, regardless of gender, income or location, according to the report. , published Thursday by The Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group.
According to a new study, people in the US die the youngest and suffer the most preventable deaths, even though the country spends almost twice as much – about 18% of the products more local – in health care than any other country in the ranking.
Polls show that health care is one of the top priorities of voters in the November presidential election. Vice President Kamala Harris created a building on the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Former President Donald Trump has offered few details about his vision for health care; his running mate, JD Vance, advocated repeal.
Thursday’s findings show, researchers say, the US spends too much but gets the least from its investments.
“No other country in the world expects patients and families to pay as much out-of-pocket for health care as they do in the US,” Dr. Joseph Betancourt, president of The Commonwealth Fund, said on the phone on Wednesday to discuss the new issue. found.
Ironically, the high price people pay does not guarantee high quality care.
“We’re running out of things that people really need,” including doctors and hospital beds, Dr. David Blumenthal, former president of The Commonwealth Fund, said on the call. “It’s one of the reasons why you wait so long in the United States for specialty care and one of the reasons why no one can find a primary care doctor.”
Thursday’s findings were based on tens of thousands of survey responses from primary care physicians and residents of high-income countries collected over the past three years.
The researchers looked at how the US compared to nine other countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Each country was divided into five categories: access to care, effectiveness of care, system efficiency, equity and health outcomes.
No country was higher or lower in each category. The countries that ranked in the top three overall were Australia, the Netherlands and the UK Australia, and the Netherlands also had the lowest use of health care, according to the report.
The researchers said the US stood out with its “exceptionally weak” performance.
It placed last or last in every category except one – maintenance performance – where it was second behind New Zealand. The care process measures things like preventive services, including mammograms and flu shots, and talking to patients.
The complex labyrinth of hospital bills, insurance disputes and out-of-pocket requirements that patients and doctors are forced to navigate puts the US second to last in terms of administrative efficiency.
“We have many different insurers, each of which sells a different product with different requirements in order for doctors or hospitals and other providers to be paid and for patients to receive their attention,” Blumenthal said. “That leads to denial of service. It leads to ongoing negotiations between doctors and hospitals and insurance companies.”
The US was also second to last in terms of equality, with more low-income people reporting that they cannot afford the care they need and more people reporting unfair treatment or discrimination.
In particular, the US had the lowest life expectancy and the highest rates of preventable and treatable disease, which were exacerbated by the epidemic.
Last year, the average life expectancy in the US was 77.5 years, more than a year from 2021, when the epidemic will reduce life expectancy to 76.4 years, according to the latest data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“That’s a new discovery,” Blumenthal said. “We have never had a finding related to the epidemic in the previous report, and it shows that, unfortunately, our low performance has been caught in our performance in relation to the death of Covid.”
Advanced medical care beyond the reach of many
Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, said the findings are consistent with other research consistently ranking the US near the bottom of peer countries on almost all health indicators. , including life expectancy, child and maternal mortality, access to health care and gender.
Many of America’s most vulnerable people, including ethnic minorities and low-income people, are uninsured or underinsured, Gostin noted. Because of the high cost of medical services, many people delay or avoid care.
“The United States offers the most advanced medical treatment in the world, but only for those who can afford it,” Gostin said. For too many people, quality medical care is out of reach.
Dr. Adam Gaffney, a critical care physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts, pointed out that the US differs from other countries in one important area: universal health care.
“Universal health care can make a difference, not only because everyone is covered and can see a doctor when they need one, but because they have a health care provider,” Gaffney said. old man who can give advice and counsel, treatment and prevention of common conditions.”
The US has ranked last in previous Commonwealth Fund reports, but researchers have tried to avoid direct comparisons from report to report because they vary the questions with participating countries.
Thursday’s report also listed solutions to the country’s health problems, including lowering the cost of care and expanding access to coverage.
“The weaknesses of the United States are clear in this international analysis, but so are the opportunities for change,” said Reginald Williams II, vice president of the International Health and Exercise Policy Program at The Commonwealth Fund.
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