Despite Americans paying nearly double that of other nations, the US fares poorly in list of 10 countries
The United States health system ranked dead last in an international comparison of 10 peer nations, according to a new report by the Commonwealth Fund.
In spite of Americans paying nearly double that of other countries, the system performed poorly on health equity, access to care and outcomes.
“I see the human toll of these shortcomings on a daily basis,” said Dr Joseph Betancourt, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation with a focus on healthcare research and policy.
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The fund said the US would need to expand insurance coverage and make “meaningful” improvements on the amount of healthcare expenses patients pay themselves; minimize the complexity and variation in insurance plans to improve administrative efficiency; build a viable primary care and public health system; and invest in social wellbeing, rather than thrust problems of social inequity onto the health system.
It’s helpful to know that if I ever leave the US, I’ll have better healthcare. I don’t even need to spend any time researching that aspect.
“Yeah, but Socialism and Communism!!!”
Some people achieve some sadistic satisfaction from denying poor people health care, even if it cost extra to themselves!?
In USA there is a sentiment that looks like they are trying to exterminate the poor, by letting them suffer and die, instead of trying to build a better more humane society for all.There’s a lot of miserable fucks out there due to a mix of leaded gas fumes, childhood trauma, and religious/political brainwashing.
Israel can afford universal healthcare. But the United States? Where would we ever find the money for that?
How far down the list of non-peer nations are we?
For a laugh (and cry), you can have a look at which countries are above the US in terms of life expectancy. It includes the likes of Maldives, Costa Rica, Panama and Oman.
Pretty far down
My family and I moved from the US to Canada in the summer of 2023 and last week was the first time I had to make use my Services Card. I went to the ER in excruciating pain, had blood and urine labs done, a shot of pain killers then waited around (a long time) for a CT scan. The doctor said it might be a new record, but I had been bumped a few times by suspected stroke patients that came in, so totally understandable. Several hours later with a prescription slip in hand I exited the hospital. Easy as pie.
For anyone who has never had the displeasure of experiencing an American hospital you can not understand how much simpler and less stressful and cheap the Canadian system is. I dont know what it would have cost me in the USA, probably whatever my insurance deductible was, but it certainly was not $0. That state of not knowing what all this is going to cost you, and how you will afford it, makes an already awful experience even worse. Not being harassed for money on the way out, never once discussing the cost of something with the DR was truly eye opening. Source
No no no, that’s simply wrong.
US healthcare system is the best in the world, at doing what it’s designed to do. Issue here is that they’re measuring it on care provide vs cost, while the US system is optimized for profits.
If they instead ranked the results by which system generated the most private profits the US would be first.
The line I’ve heard is
best in the world for those who can afford it
But medicine is still an industry that benefits from economy of scale. It still benefits from public sector R&D. It still benefits from robust safety regulations and enforcement of best practices.
We’ve been chipping away at all of that. Hell, we’re straight up closing hospitals and clinics all over the country, purely because so few of them are economically viable when pitted against a ruthless private insurance market.
If they instead ranked the results by which system generated the most private profits
There are sectors that bring in big profits, but they’re extracting those profits from the sectors that deliver the medicine.
The snake is eating it’s own tail. This isn’t a long term strategy for profit. Every quarterly cycle leans harder on Medicaid and Medicare as the private systems fail.
My wife broke her ankle and insurance denied the entire claim for being “not medically necessary”. The “medical professional” (not doctor) who denied the claim had experience in OBGYN, not orthopedics.
100% going to win the appeal because like, we have x-rays of the shattered bones in her leg, but seriously wtf. People seriously believe this is the ideal medical system?
I’m on appeal #3 right now with my insurance for something they told me would be 100% covered. I’m getting my doctor in on it to do a peer to peer. He sounded so fed up with everything he was like “it’s probably some retired pediatrician who doesn’t know anything about what you need” when talking about who he’d need to talk with. If this one doesn’t work then I’m on to the “threaten to sue” stage which I’m not excited about. The whole thing is a mess and the process and money that’s gone into it would have easily bankrupted or put me homeless at most previous times in my life
I’m not a lawyer, but a piece of legal advice I’ve seen repeated many times is “Never threaten to sue. Just sue.”
As soon as you threaten to sue, you’ll never be able to talk to anybody except the legal team, and they’ll do nothing to help your case.
Cigna doctors spend an average of 1.2 seconds per case. Their whole system is to deny everything right off the bat, and then they only have to potentially pay out for patients who have the resources to appeal.
Oh, I read this John Grisham book.
When I was in the insurance industry, for a company who administered various policies from Aetna, BCBS, Cigna, United and Medicare, that was the SOP. Deny anything that took more than a few seconds of brain power, put clients through endless rounds of appeals. The medical director was amoral AF too, because well, the insurance company exists for profit, and bonuses are dependent on paying out as little as possible. It got pretty bad, too, enough that my immediate supervisor started signing off a bunch of approvals, circumventing the medical director, where any shred of plausibility was available.
Now, there is automated software. HIPAA has it’s pros and cons.
But the US system ranks first in wealth extraction from people to billionaires, so it’s working as intended.
Shocking. “Best health care system in the world,” my ass. “You’ll have to wait months if there’s universal healthcare.” Bitch, I have to wait months now.
Who has ever said that? You guys have no healthcare. It’s literally a joke to anyone outside of US.
They always bring up Canadians having to wait for long periods of time at the emergency room.
Wendell Potter spent decades scaring Americans. About Canada. He worked for the health insurance industry, and he knew that if Americans understood Canadian-style health care, they might … like it. So he helped deploy an industry playbook for protecting the health insurance agency.
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925354134/frame-canada
Here’s an archived piece Wendell wrote for WaPo about what he did and how he did it.
The health care scare: I sold Americans a lie about Canadian medicine. Now we’re paying the price.
Our politicians and pundits say it all the time.
Not a high bar if they’re also saying immigratns are eating People’s pets.
But you have to understand, to 74 million people, the Fox News Cinematic Universe is reality. There’s regular bullshit, and then there’s bullshit so widely believed that you actually have to study the bullshit, just to be able to predict what its subscribers will do next. Like religion.
You’re wrong but not in the way you think. It’s also a joke to everyone inside the US, except billionaires. Billionaires love it
“You’ll have to wait months if there’s universal healthcare.”
Yeah, but that healthcare is still practically guaranteed, and it won’t put you into debt
Several times I’ve had to wait for months on healthcare in the US system. This is such a weak argument against a socialized system.
Literally anything I want done is a wait list here. Eye exam; schedule a time. Dentist; is it an emergency? We’ll schedule you sometime next month. Phycologist; its a theee month wait list. Primary care; see you in three months. Finding a reliable primary care has been a dead end nightmare.
I’m not shitting on doctors or nurses. Just this whole system is bonkers. For what reason? Healthcare is not a business.
“In capitalism everything’s a buisness.” Well get fucked.
I’m not saying we should be reductive. There is reasons for the way we do things. I am saying though, we’ve gone too far and it’s obscuring the goal of a having a functional society.
People need professionals to help with their health; an extremely complex field. Every person needs this. Its not an optional thing. You want a society, well a society needs people, and people need Healthcare.
“Well I never wanted to be part of a society.” Did you enjoy the luxury that having a society provides? From plumbing to super yatchs, all of this wealth we share was made by people like you and me.
My insurance bumped up the copay on primary care to make it less affordable than an urgent care visit, incentivizing us to get care with immense surcharges. But at least we can get a same-day appointment instead of waiting a month or two to see the most qualified and familiar person with our conditions. Fuck capitalism, as usual.
Get everyone to use the ERs and clinics which pay doctors less. Think there’s a reason for that?
I had my primary care doctor retire. The gigantic hospital system with which they work put all existing patients in as new patients for the incoming doctor. It has been 18 months and I’m still waiting for the new patient visit. Fighting to even get maintainance medications filled has been crazy because I keep being told “I have to see my doctor.” Circular logic abounds.
The gigantic system makes it so I cannot directly contact the office, it is all hurry up and wait through their patient portal systems which require 24-48 hours for response time. Can’t go to the doctors office to complain without an appointment.
This system is working optimally for someone. It is not us.
Universal healthcare paid from the taxes of the wealthy. Cmon. Asking for a few million friends. 😣
The goal has been reached
Eh, but how do we rank if you are flush with disposable income?
This sounds like a health system Trump would love!!!
