While expensive, most of us normally associate U.S. health care as the world’s best in terms of innovation. This report by the Commonwealth Fund states otherwise, but also reveals some important steps that the U.S. can take to get better control of its systems for providing health care.
American medical care may be the most expensive in the world, but that does not mean it is worth every penny. A study to be released Thursday highlights the stark contrast between what the United States spends on its health system and the quality of care it delivers, especially when compared with many other industrialized nations.
The report, the second national scorecard from this influential health policy research group, shows that the United States spends more than twice as much on each person for health care as most other industrialized countries. But it has fallen to last place among those countries in preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care, according to the report by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group in New York.
