The U.S. Health Care System Is Badly Broken (& Too Expensive)

The Republicans have complained long and loud that the health care system in the United States is the best in the world (and only needs minor changes). That's hogwash, and the American people know it. The Commonwealth Fund has just issued a new report that compares the U.S. health care system to the health care systems of other developed nations -- and the comparison doesn't look good for the U.S. system.

To begin with, Americans are significantly more unhappy with their health care system than the people in other developed nations. Only 29% of Americans think their system is a good one that only needs a little minor tweaking (and more than 70% believe the system needs fundamental changes or a complete rebuilding). That's far more dissatisfaction than among other developed nations.

Another quite troubling fact is that there are significantly more avoidable deaths in the American system -- deaths that should have been prevented. This is undoubtably because too many Americans do not have any kind of health insurance, and thus are unable to receive preventative health care -- the care that could save their lives by early detection and treatment of serious illnesses like cancer.

Another argument posed by right-wingers is that the systems of other developed nations (most of whom have government-run or government-insured systems) result in delays of sick people being able to get access to health care. That is just another myth. The truth is that people in most of those other countries have the same or better access to health care when they get sick.

But perhaps the most important aspects of this comparison is that the other developed nations provide all of their citizens with affordable access to decent health care, while millions in the United States must go without that access (and thousands die each year because of that lack of access) -- and those nations do it while paying less for health care than the United States (both in terms of per capita cost, and as a percentage of the national GDP). In short, the U.S. pays more and receives less.

 The fact is that the American system of health care is not the best in the world. It leaves too many people without adequate health care, and still costs too much (more than other nations pay while covering all of their citizens). Obamacare fixed a few things, but the system is still badly broken. It is time to fix it -- and the best fix would be a single-payer government-run system (like a Medicare for all system).