U.S. Scores Last on Health Care
The United States again ranked last among six nations studied by the Commonwealth Fund on health access, safety, efficiency, and equity measures of health care, the Washington think tank reported. The study, “Mirror, Mirror,” draws on survey responses from primary care physicians and from data from the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System scorecard, and pits the U.S. health system against those in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The United States outperformed all other nations on preventive care delivery but lagged behind on health care information technology and on coordinating chronic disease care. In addition, U.S. patients were more likely than were their peers to forgo treatment because of high costs, the study found.