That does not mean the US has the highest quality healthcare in terms of health outcomes for the population.
If anyone reading this believes we (the US) have the highest quality health outcomes, please do some research with an open mind. We're not terrible, just far worse than you'd expect given our wealth. We are actually great in some cases, e.g., certain types of cancer treatment (I think, don't have stats at hand). But in many, many categories, our outcomes are middle of the pack or towards the bottom for developed countries. For example, IIRC, we're quite middling/mediocre in life expectancy, infant mortality, heart attack mortality, % of diabetics with managed care, efficiency of spend, etc.
Life expectancy, infant mortality, and heart attack mortality are directly related to our culture more than access to health care. Go look at our obesity rates. Do you think not having to pay a copay to go to a doctor would fix that?
You seem to have an unfalisfiable belief that our mediocre health outcomes are due to problems in our general culture. In other words, all of the good outcomes are due to us having the highest quality healthcare, and all of the bad outcomes are due to culture.
I disagree. I believe that a) our healthcare system is part of our general culture and b) deficiencies in our healthcare system contribute to our health outcomes.
I don't think we'll bridge that gap in the HN comment section. Have a great weekend. Cheers.
US life expectancy: 79 years Sweden life expectancy: 81 years
It is falsifiable. When I talk about culture I'm talking about things like smoking rates, obesity rates, etc. These things are totally unrelated to whether or not you pay a copay to go to a doctor. If you think our relative life expectancy has nothing to do with our obesity rates, then I'm sorry but you just don't need to be making statements about healthcare at all.
Likewise, I disagree that "paying a copay to go to a doctor" is really the crux of the issue.
Maybe we'll meet one day by happenstance and have a richer discussion on this complicated topic. Have a good one.
In fact "best in the world" care depends largely on disease, in many cases the best teams in the world are in the US, in others they are not. If you are (globally) rich, you go wherever the best care is. But that typically isn't "the US", that's far too broad. It is a particular team, at a particular hospital, in the US. Or maybe there are 3 to choose from.
So sure, if you are rich enough to go anywhere, and have enough social capital to get in, you can have amazing care for most conditions in the US. And in some cases you would go to France, say, instead - because they were better for what you have.
But that doesn't mean that the average person in the US in the average hospital, say, is getting the "best care". As far as we can see (and it's difficult) mostly what they are getting is roughly equivalent care for higher costs. It's a complicated issue as to why, of course. Particularly if you are looking at outcomes, rather than procedures. On top of that, access for 10's of millions of Americans is sub-par, in comparison to peer systems.