Americans live shorter, less healthy lives than people in several other countries, according to a new assessment of 10 developed countries by The Commonwealth Fund, which found that the United States ranks last among those countries in health equity, access to care, efficiency and health outcomes.
The American foundation evaluated access to care, care process, administrative efficiency, equity and health outcomes among the nations.
“The United States is failing one of its principal obligations as a nation: to protect the health and welfare of its people,” according to Joseph Betancourt, MD, president of The Commonwealth Fund, quoted Thursday in a HealthDay article.
Americans live shorter, less healthy lives than people in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, according to the study. The United States spends more on healthcare, yet Americans experience the most difficulties getting and affording it.
“The US continues to be in a class by itself in the underperformance of its healthcare sector. While the other nine countries differ in the details of their systems and in their performance on domains, unlike the US, they all have found a way to meet their residents’ most basic healthcare needs, including universal coverage,” according to the report.
Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom scored highest overall in the assessment.
The Netherlands, UK and Germany scored well in measures of affordability because each country has low cost-related barriers to care, and “universal coverage ensures that copayments for health services, if any, are small, guaranteeing both access and affordability,” the report said.
The United States did land in second place in terms of the “care process,” which includes prevention, safety and patient engagement. The researchers cited the Affordable Care Act as a reason for the high ranking in that metric. Other high performers in care process were New Zealand and the Netherlands.
