It's the S.O.S.

Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries.

That's the Commonwealth Fund again, updating what we already know.

Among the seven nations studied—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last overall, as it did in the 2007, 2006, and 2004 editions of Mirror, Mirror. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, coordination, efficiency, and equity. The Netherlands ranks first, followed closely by the U.K. and Australia. The 2010 edition includes data from the seven countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on various dimensions of care.

And yep, we're still spending twice as much as the rest of them in order to get the lousiest results. One more thing -- the rest of those countries are damn commies. The dead hand of government is strangling the wondrous creativity of free enterprise in health care. But the facts will never get in the way of a bullshit story about "freedom" in this delusional country.