Where U.S. Health Care Ranks Number One

Subject: txt hcare -
Last August the cover of Time pictured President Obama in white coat and stethoscope. The story opened: "The U.S. spends more to get less [health care] than just about every other industrialized country." This trope has dominated media coverage of health-care reform. Yet a majority of Americans opposes Congress's health-care bills. Why?

The comparative ranking system that most critics cite comes from the U.N.'s World Health Organization (WHO). The ranking most often quoted is Overall Performance, where the U.S. is rated No. 37. The Overall Performance Index, however, is adjusted to reflect how well WHO officials believe that a country could have done in relation to its resources.

The scale is heavily subjective: The WHO believes that we could have done better because we do not have universal coverage. What apparently does not matter is that our population has universal access because physicians treat indigent patients without charge and accept Medicare and Medicaid payments, which do not even cover overhead expenses.

The WHO does rank the U.S. No. 1 of 191 countries for "responsiveness to the needs and choices of the individual patient."

Isn't responsiveness what health care is all about?

[I.e., another UN paid for political propaganda piece mascarading as a 'study', and another literal example of what makes the organization literally worse than worthless: it does harm, again and again.

But watch: it's the WHO 'report' that'll get MSM air time.]

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