STAT January 29, 2024
I’ve spent my career studying how different health care systems work. People love to ask me which country has the best care — and are often disappointed when I don’t have an easy answer for them.
Every health care model involves people doing their best to balance competing priorities in the face of limited resources. In other words, every system involves tradeoffs.
In the U.S., even people who should know better often turn to reductive comparisons in debates over whether we should continue with our private, market-driven system or switch to fully government-funded coverage.
One article claimed that when looking at life expectancy and spending, “there is one key difference between the U.S. and other countries: a single-payer health care...