The Atlantic

What's Actually Wrong With the U.S. Health System

A new report shows why American health care performs so poorly compared to its rivals—and suggests the Obamacare replacement proposals aren’t the way to fix it.
Source: Cris Toala Olivares / Reuters

On the heels of the Senate’s latest attempt at replacing the Affordable Care Act, the Commonwealth Fund has released its latest evaluation of what, exactly, ails the U.S. health-care system. Once again, the think tank found the U.S. medical system performed the worst among 11 similar countries, all while spending more.

The United States fared especially badly on measures of affordability, access, health outcomes, and equality between the rich and poor. The United Kingdom ranked first, and the other countries in the comparison were Australia, Switzerland,

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