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Avoiding Death: How the US Fails on a Key Healthcare Metric
A new study shows that the US is at the bottom of the barrel compared to other developed nations.
It doesn’t really matter what metric you choose. When you compare healthcare outcomes in the United States to other developed nations, we don’t stack up too well.
Among the 38 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US ranks #1 in healthcare expenditure per capita, #1 in healthcare expenditure as a percentage of GDP, and #1 in the percent of overweight or obesity. And that’s basically it for our superlatives.
We rank 33 out of 38 in infant mortality. We are 29 out of 38 for life expectancy at age 65, between Greece and Estonia.
We do a bit better for cancer mortality — 10th — better than Costa Rica, worse than Sweden.
People can take issue with all of these metrics. They all have their flaws — and of course none of them really captures the big question — the whole picture — which is basically “how good is our country at taking care of the health of its population?”
