US comes last in international comparison of health systems

Three times in a row the US health system has come last in the US Commonwealth Fund's survey of health systems in six industrialised nations.

The United Kingdom was ranked first overall, scoring highest on quality, efficiency, and equity. In terms of “healthy lives”—measured by numbers of preventable deaths and life expectancy—Australia ranked highest.

The US and the UK had poor scores on indicators of healthy lives, the report said. Both countries had high mortality (in 1998) from treatable conditions. Mortality was 25% to 50% higher in the US and the UK than in Canada and Australia.

The US ranked last on the five dimensions of a high performance health system: …