Is US Health Really the Best in the World?
- Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH
- Author Affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Md.
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Information concerning the deficiencies of US medical care has been accumulating. The fact that more than 40 million people have no health insurance is well known. The high cost of the health care system is considered to be a deficit, but seems to be tolerated under the assumption that better health results from more expensive care, despite evidence from a few studies indicating that as many as 20% to 30% of patients receive contraindicated care.1 In addition, with the release of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report "To Err Is Human,"2 millions of Americans learned, for the first time, that an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 among them die each year as a result of medical errors.
The fact is that the US population does not have anywhere near the best health in the world. Of 13 countries in a recent comparison,3 the United States ranks an average …
