4th May 2004
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States may spend twice as much on
health care as other rich countries but it is not getting results to
match, according to studies released on Tuesday.
But in the study of
five wealthy countries, published in the journal Health Affairs,
researchers found no single nation had clearly the worst or best
health care system.
Gerard Anderson at Johns Hopkins University's school of public health
and colleagues came up with a list of 21 health fields they could
evenly compare across the five countries - Australia, Canada, Britain,
New Zealand and the United States.
"None of the five countries ... is consistently the best or the
worst on all 21 indicators," Anderson said during a telephone
briefing for reporters.
"If you are looking for the place to get the best care, there
isn't a single place .... Every country has at least one indicator
where it scores the best of the five countries (and) each country has
at least one indicator where it scores the worst of the five
countries."
But, he said, the United States is not getting value for money.
"The United States should be particularly concerned about these
results, given that we spend twice as much on health care as any other
country. So spending more doesn't necessarily result in better
outcomes."
Anderson's group of international health experts sponsored by The
Commonwealth Fund spent five years working on the study, getting the
latest possible data from the five countries on areas such as breast
cancer and leukemia survival, suicide rates, death rates from asthma,
vaccination rates and cancer screening.
SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES
The differences are significant.
"For example, the breast cancer survival rate is 14 percent
better (higher) in the United States than in England, and the suicide
rate is 55 percent better (lower) in England than in New
Zealand," the report reads.
Survival rates for childhood leukemia are the worst in Australia and
are 18 percent better in Canada and 10 percent better in the United
States.
"One pattern that does stand out is that England is consistently
at the low end of the distribution for cancer survival. This is
consistent with previous comparisons of cancer survival between the
United Kingdom and other European countries," the report reads.
Asthma mortality rates are on the rise in the United States while they
have decreased in the other countries. New Zealand already used the
findings to improve its asthma mortality rate by switching to better
drugs, the report said.
Anderson and a smaller team did a second report focusing on the United
States as compared to the other 20 members of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development.
It finds the United States spent $4,887 per capita on health care in
2001, compared to $2,792 in Canada, $2,513 in Australia and $1,992 in
Britain.
"Our results also fail to reveal what the extra spending has
bought, although there are many important places to look," the
report reads.
It finds the United States has fewer doctors, nurses and hospital beds
than many countries that spend less on health care. The United States
has 2.7 doctors per 100,000 population, 8.1 nurses per 100,000 and 2.9
beds.
Yet Greece manages 4.4 doctors per 100,000, 3.9 nurses and 4.0
hospital beds.
By Maggie Fox
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