Diagnosing American Health Care

By Staff

Mountains of contradictory statistics, insurance plans, tax brackets, and general wonkery confront anyone who tries to wrap their head around the morass of American health care. The American Prospect‘s Ezra Klein makes the nut a little easier to crack by boiling down the data into ten bite-sized reasons why the U.S. healthcare system is floundering

Here are some choice findings: Even though Americans spend more on healthcare than any other country, our doctors fall behind other nations’ doctors in adopting new electronic filing technologies that can save everybody money. Americans have the second-highest rate of chronic disease in the world, but we can’t get the consistent care to fix the interconnected problems that go along with a diagnosis of diabetes or heart disease. And even though we spend the most on healthcare per capita, 16 percent of the population doesn’t even have healthcare. But at least the US healthcare system can help Rudy Giuliani with his prostate. —Brendan Mackie

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