The U.S. health system is largely failing in its fundamental mission to protect Americans’ health, ranking last among 10 nations on key health equity, access to care, and outcome measures, a new Commonwealth Fund study finds. Despite spending the most of any nation in the study, the United States has the worst-performing health care system overall. Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom rank the highest.
The report, Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System, reveals that low-income Americans are much more likely to experience problems accessing quality care. In addition, U.S. physicians report the secondhighest rate of people being treated unfairly by the health system and patients experiencing discrimination or health concerns not being taken seriously because of their race or ethnicity. Only New Zealand scored worse on these measures. When it comes to life expectancy and avoidable deaths, the U.S. comes in last.