A Washington, DC-based private foundation compared the health systems of 11 developed nations, concluding that the United States system is the “most expensive” but underperforms relative to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
“The U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2010, 2007, 2006, and 2004 editions of Mirror, Mirror,” according to an executive summary. “Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last or near last on dimensions of access, efficiency, and equity. In this edition of Mirror, Mirror, the United Kingdom ranks first, followed closely by Switzerland (Exhibit ES-1).”
Expanding from the seven countries included in 2010, the 2014 edition includes data from 11 countries. It incorporates patients’ and physicians’ survey results on care experiences and ratings on various dimensions of care. “The most recent list includes information from the most recent three Commonwealth Fund international surveys of patients and primary care physicians about medical practices and views of their countries’ health systems (2011–2013),” according to summary findings. “It also includes information on health care outcomes featured in The Commonwealth Fund’s most recent (2011) national health system scorecard, and from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).”
The full list (in order):
U.K.
Switzerland
Sweden
Australia
Germany
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
France
Canada
USA
The Commonwealth Fund is described (on their Web site) as “a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society’s most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.”
Source: Commonwealth Fund