This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related articles  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Health Policy  • Quality of Care, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: The Special Communication by Drs Herzlinger and Parsa-Parsi¹ describes the comparative expenditures, resources, and some clinical outcomes for the medical systems in Switzerland and the United States, as well as selected states that have demographic features that most resemble the Swiss population. Key differences include far greater spending in the United States (per capita, as percentage of income, and as percentage of gross domestic product), with fewer resources in some areas (acute care beds, practicing physicians, computed tomography scanners, magnetic resonance imaging units, and occupied inpatient beds). Important health outcomes were worse in the United States compared with Switzerland (eg, infant mortality was 26% higher in 1999 and mortality from cerebrovascular disease was 43% higher in 1997). Dr Reinhardt, in his Commentary,² notes that in 2000 the rate of avoidable premature deaths in the United States was 5120 per 100 000 compared with 3400 per 100 000 in . . . [Full Text of this Article]

William W. Pfaff, MD
pfaff@surgery.ufl.edu
Department of Surgery
University of Florida
Gainesville

RELATED ARTICLES

Holes in the Swiss Health Care System
Thomas M. Vogt
JAMA. 2005;293(19):2337.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Holes in the Swiss Health Care System
Erik von Elm, Matthias Egger, Daniel Pewsner, and Brigitte Bisig
JAMA. 2005;293(19):2337-2338.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Holes in the Swiss Health Care System
Isabelle Peytremann Bridevaux and Brigitte Santos-Eggimann
JAMA. 2005;293(19):2338-2339.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Holes in the Swiss Health Care System
Arnold Relman
JAMA. 2005;293(19):2339.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Holes in the Swiss Health Care System
Mark Tuckfelt
JAMA. 2005;293(19):2339.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Holes in the Swiss Health Care System—Reply
Regina E. Herzlinger and Ramin Parsa-Parsi
JAMA. 2005;293(19):2339-2340.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Holes in the Swiss Health Care System—Reply
Uwe E. Reinhardt
JAMA. 2005;293(19):2340.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Consumer-Driven Health Care: Lessons From Switzerland
Regina E. Herzlinger and Ramin Parsa-Parsi
JAMA. 2004;292(10):1213-1220.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

The Swiss Health System: Regulated Competition Without Managed Care
Uwe E. Reinhardt
JAMA. 2004;292(10):1227-1231.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT