American Healthcare Broken? Says Who?

A new study from the Commonwealth Fund ranks the U.S. health system dead last among 10 developed nations.

But is healthcare in the United States really that bad?

A close look at the data suggests otherwise.

In fact, there's no better place in the world to get sick than the United States. Patients here enjoy much better access to cutting-edge, life-saving care than their peers abroad.

Upon the report's release, Commonwealth Fund President Dr. Joseph Betancourt told reporters, "No other country in the world expects patients and families to pay as much out of pocket for essential health care as they do in the U.S."

Perhaps Dr. Betancourt should look at the most recent figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

According to the OECD, out-of-pocket health costs accounted for just 2.8% of U.S. household consumption in 2021.

That's well below the OECD average of 3.3% — and less than what people in Germany, Canada, Australia, Sweden, and Switzerland pay out of pocket for healthcare.

Yet, all these countries somehow ranked higher than the United States in the Commonwealth Fund study.

It's also worth asking how the United Kingdom could possibly rank second for "access to care."

According to data from July, 7.62 million people in England were on a waitlist for some form of care. To put that in perspective, that's about 13% of the population — more than one in eight English residents.

Some Britons suffering a stroke or heart attack have had to wait more than 24 hours for an ambulance.

The Independent, a British newspaper, reported in June that hospitals were so overrun that patients were left to die on gurneys in hospital hallways.

Others were forced to undergo intimate medical examinations in front of other patients.

Those patients would surely dispute that they have top-flight "access to care."

It's no wonder that many Brits are turning to the private market to meet their healthcare needs. About 13% have paid for private care.

Wait times in Canada's single-payer system have also gone from bad to worse in recent years. The typical patient waits nearly 28 weeks for specialist care following referral by a general practitioner, according to research from the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute

That's roughly triple the median wait in 1993.

Yet Canada still manages to outperform the United States in "access to care," by the Commonwealth Fund's reckoning.

The Commonwealth Fund ranks the U.S. healthcare system dead last on outcomes, too. Life expectancy is more than four years below the average among the 10 developed nations analyzed. But the authors note that "[t]he ongoing substance use crisis and the prevalence of gun violence in the U.S. contribute significantly to its poor outcomes."

It defies logic to blame America's healthcare system for gun deaths or the failure of the war on drugs. But that's essentially what the Commonwealth Fund is doing.

When people truly need healthcare, they fare quite well in the United States. Consider that America has some of the lowest cancer mortality rates in the world — better than those in Germany, France, or the United Kingdom.

The Commonwealth Fund's study goes out of its way to portray America's health system as broken --- while ignoring the very real problems with healthcare provision in places like the United Kingdom and Canada. The result is a report that obscures more than it reveals — and that no American should take to heart.

Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and the Thomas W. Smith fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is "False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All," (Encounter Books 2020). Follow her on Twitter @sallypipes. Read Sally Pipes' Reports — More Here.