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Americans think that their system of healthcare is the best in the world. Nope. Not even close. Not even for privileged white Americans. We're number 13 in a recent ranking of 13 countries.

A team of researchers compared six health outcomes in the wealthiest (top 1% and 5%) American counties to health outcomes of average citizens in 12 other developed countries. In three areas, such as infant mortality, maternal mortality, and heart attack survival, U.S. patients fared worse, and in two areas health outcomes are no better than for average citizens in other countries. Again: Health care for privileged Americans living in the wealthiest counties ranked worse overall than health care for average people in 12 other countries.

As expected, the health outcomes of White US citizens living in the 1% and 5% richest counties are better than those of average US citizens (not surprising!).

Breast cancer survival was the only area in which wealthy white American patients fared as well as average patients from all of the comparison countries, and better than 1 other country.

Infant mortality and maternal death rates in the US are disgraceful.  The infant death rate in the wealthiest American counties (4.01 deaths per 1000 live births) was higher than all the other 12 comparison countries. For example, in Finland the infant mortality rate is 1.7 per 1,000 live births. The average rate in America is even worse: 5.9 deaths per 1,000 live births. [See study tables for numbers.]

Again: Health care for privileged Americans living in the wealthiest counties ranked worse than health care for average people in 12 other countries. The 12 other comparison countries were Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

Yes, the other countries all have universal health care with a single payer system. And we don't.

From Medscape: Even for Wealthy, US Healthcare Fails to Match Care in Many Other Countries

When it comes to health care, even privileged white Americans fare worse than the average citizens of 12 other developed countries, a new study suggests.  ...continue reading "Healthcare In the US Lags Behind Other Countries"