The United States is a world leader in medical research, education and technology but a global laggard in health care access across its population.

A startling new study by the Commonwealth Fund of the 11 highest-income nations has found that the United States ranks last overall in providing affordable, equitably accessible health care.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. health care spending in 2019, the year before the coronavirus pandemic, was more than $3.6 trillion, about 17.5% of gross domestic product and more than $11,000 per person.

Yet the Commonwealth Fund found that all of that spending doesn’t translate into uniformly accessible quality care. For example, 50% of low-income adults in the survey said that costs had prevented them from getting needed health care, compared with 12% in the United Kingdom. Among all adults, 38% of Americans reported skipping recommended medical care in the previous year due to cost, compared with 8% in Norway and 9% in the Netherlands.

The study also reported that 34% of American adults had experienced cases in which insurers paid less than expected or declined coverage, compared with 4% in Germany and the U.K.

And the situation is no easier on medical professionals. More than 63% of U.S.primary care doctors said time spent on paperwork and wrangling with insurers was a major problem, compared with just 7% of their counterparts in Norway.

Partially due to costs and skipped care, the U.S. also ranked at the bottom for health care outcomes across the population in maternal mortality, infant mortality, life expectancy at 60 and preventable deaths. The U.S. rate of preventable mortality, 177 deaths per 100,000 population, was more than twice as high as Switzerland’s 83 deaths per 100,000 people.

There is no mystery to these findings. The United States is the only nation among the 11 wealthiest that does not have universal health care coverage and related consumer protections.

The study recommended expanded health insurance coverage, strengthened primary care, reduced administrative complexity for insurance, and improved social services covering housing, education and nutrition as solutions to America’s dismal ranking. But everyone knows that. The real deficit is in political will, which must be created at the ballot box.

— Republican & Herald, Pottsville/TNS