Mirror, Mirror 2021: Reflecting poorly health care in the U.S. compared to other high-income countries

Summary

No two countries are alike when it comes to organising and delivering healthcare for their people, creating an opportunity to learn about alternative approaches.

Schneider et al. compared the performance of 11 high-income countries healthcare systems.

Content

Key findings

The top-performing countries overall are Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia. The United States ranks last overall, despite spending far more of its gross domestic product on healthcare. The U.S. ranks last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcomes, but second on measures of care process.

Four features distinguish top performing countries from the United States:

• they provide for universal coverage and remove cost barriers
• they invest in primary care systems to ensure that high-value services are equitably available in all communities to all people
• they reduce administrative burdens that divert time, efforts, and spending from health improvement efforts
• they invest in social services, especially for children and working-age adults.