WASHINGTON
(AP) -- A new study challenges a widely held view in the United
States that Americans have the best medical care in the world.
A review of health care in the United States and four other
industrialized, English-speaking countries, published Tuesday
in the journal Health Affairs, found that the United States
leads in some areas and trails in others.
Breast cancer survival rates were higher in the United States
than in Australia, Canada, England and New Zealand, the report
says, citing health data through 2000. American women also
were screened for cervical cancer at a higher rate than women
in the other countries.
Yet the United States was the only country that registered
a rise in deaths from asthma. The rate of infection from hepatitis
B also was highest in the United States.
"No country scores consistently the best or worst overall,
and each country has at least one area of care where it could
learn from international experience," the study said.
Although health care experts are increasingly aware of gaps
in the quality of care, the report notes that U.S. politicians
frequently state, as President Bush did in his State of the
Union address in January, "Americans have the best medical
care in the world."
The authors -- U.S. academics and international health care
officials -- say they want to spur debate about health care
priorities rather than draw conclusions that explain the differences.
A related report in Health Affairs examines why the United
States spends far more on health care than any other nation,
and whether the country can afford it.
Authors Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton University and Peter Hussey
and Gerard Anderson of Johns Hopkins University conclude that
health insurance will become increasingly unaffordable to
lower-income workers, forcing lawmakers to choose between
some form of universal health care and a system in which there
is a stark difference in the quality of care based on ability
to pay.
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- A new study challenges a widely held view in the United
States that Americans have the best medical care in the world.
