U.S. vs. U.K. healthcare systems

I found the following article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that details a Journal of the American Medical Association study that compares the cost/quality of the U.S. health care to that of the British nationalized system. Needless to say, ours costs more and delivers worse results. The doctors quoted in the article offer differing explanations for the disparity -- judge for yourself whose is more convincing.

Excerpts are provided below. Click the headline to read the full article.

If our health care's so great, why does study say we're "sicker than the English"?
By John Fauber
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

... Compared with the British, white, middle-aged Americans are substantially less healthy, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Pick the disease — diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, lung disease, high blood pressure — and Americans are much more likely to have it than their counterparts on the other side of the pond. ...

Adding insult to injury, Americans pay more than twice as much for their medical care as the British: $5,274 a year per person in the United States versus $2,164 in England, the study notes.

Doctors not associated with the study say it is the latest evidence of befuddling health disparities in the United States compared with other industrialized countries. It also undermines the often-cited claim that America has the best health care in the world, doctors said. ...

... when the researchers divided people from the two countries by both education and income levels, Americans who had higher incomes and who were more educated often had higher rates of ailments such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease than English who were in the bottom level. ...

Even though more money is spent on health care in the United States, the emphasis is different. In England, more attention is paid on primary care and making sure everyone gets basic medical care.

"You get to the problems earlier," said Barbara Starfield, a distinguished professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University. ...