Vox July 6, 2021
Covid-19 put American health care even further behind other wealthy nations.
Take a long enough lens — say, 25 years — and it seems as though health care in America is inarguably getting better.
People are living longer than they did a quarter century ago. The burden of disease, a metric that includes premature deaths and disability, has dropped. The number of avoidable hospitalizations and hospital errors is lower.
But below those rosy numbers is the truth: American health care has been falling behind other countries in the developed world for decades.
Life expectancy has increased, but by less in the US than in the wealthy nations of Europe and Asia. The improvement in disease burden has likewise been less...