Studies Show U.S. Spending Doesn't Get Best Health

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Studies Show U.S. Spending Doesn't Get Best Health

By Maggie Fox

WASHINGTON (Reuters) May 04 - 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 at s 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, " 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. "

'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.

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

ation 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.