We're number last

That's 11th out of 11 wealthy countries. It isn't exactly news -- the Commonwealth Fund does this study every year and the U.S. always wins the booby prize for the worst health care in the OECD. To wit:

• Key Findings: The top-performing countries overall are Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia. The United States ranks last overall, despite spending far more of its gross domestic product on health care. The U.S. ranks last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcomes, but second on measures of care process.
• Conclusion: Four features distinguish top performing countries from the United States: 1) they provide for universal coverage and remove cost barriers; 2) they invest in primary care systems to ensure that high-value services are equitably available in all communities to all people; 3) they reduce administrative burdens that divert time, efforts, and spending from health improvement efforts; and 4) they invest in social services, especially for children and working-age adults.

And BTW, who cares about being second in measures of "care process." Process only matters if it leads to outcomes and in the case of the U.S., the outcomes are the worst. Oh, and by a lot:

Exhibit 2 shows the extent to which the U.S. is an outlier: its performance falls well below the average of the other countries and far below the two countries ranked directly above it, Switzerland and Canada. In fact, the U.S. is such an outlier that we have calculated the average performance based on the other 10 countries, excluding the U.S.

And we sure as hell aren't getting what we pay for:

 

Exhibit 3 shows that while spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) has increased in all countries, spending growth in the U.S. — by far the worst performer overall — has greatly exceeded growth in the other 10 nations. In 1980, high-income countries spent between 5 percent and 8 percent of GDP on health care. But as U.S. spending accelerated over the decades, the U.S. was spending a substantially larger share of its GDP on health care by 2019 than every other high-income country.

 

But what's the difference between the U.S., with its shitty health care that wastes vast sums of money, and all those other countries that get better results and pay a whole lot less? Socialism. Read it an weep.