Comment by peter422 2 days ago
15 out of the top 50 and 4/6 top hospitals in the world are in the US: https://rankings.newsweek.com/worlds-best-hospitals-2025
Again, I’m not saying the health care outcomes are better, or the value is better. I’m saying the hospitals are nicer, the doctors are the best, etc.
Perhaps this is the wrong thing to optimize for! But we are getting something.
Perhaps my language was too imprecise.
My argument is that specifically the best care in the US is the best in the world. We have the best doctors and the best technology and the best treatments. This is not completely universal but it is also generally accurate.
Whether or not this care is accessible or the median quality is care is good, that is different.
I’m just saying we do get something for the money, it’s not like it all gets thrown down the drain. The best and brightest come to the US to get some of the huge spigots of money in the US healthcare system and it does drive innovation.
How does that account for a population who..
..74% are overweight or obese
..less than 10% meet the fruit and vegetable recommendations
..25% get the recommended amount of exercise
..eat more than 70g added sugar a day
Healthcare really has the deck stacked against it however you look at it
Your mistake is separating those items from healthcare, when it's part of it.
Even in the US, many (most?) insurances and healthcare systems have programs to address all those. My HMO certainly does - I can engage with them and craft a healthy nutrition plan, and my doctor can be involved in that as well. Ditto for exercise.
If care is not affordable and makes average people just one accident away from bankruptcy, then it might well not exist in calculations. This is akin to saying the USA is the richest country because it has more billionaires than any other country.
This is a highly recycled talking point that only applies to people lucky enough to live in the vicinity of Standford, UCLA, Mass Gen, Cleveland Clinic, or Johns Hopkins AND afford a visit and is extremely dismissive of the millions of other Americans who can't. Rural hospitals have been shuttered and some people have even been turned away at emergency rooms now. This claim simply does not match up to reality, no matter how many graphs you put together.
> the best care in the US is the best in the world
For a few Americans. Not for all Americans, and probably not even for most Americans. There's far more to the United States than New England and Southern California.
Don't get me wrong, if I had some rare cancer or other strange disease, chances are I'll want to try and get in to one of these few rare ultra premium hospitals. But if I break my leg or get some normal infection or have a child or any of the other normal kinds of issues people have? Will that still be the best tier of care?
> if I break my leg or get some normal infection or have a child or any of the other normal kinds of issues people have? Will that still be the best tier of care?
Does it need to be? I imagine it's far easier to treat a broken bone, in most cases, vs a rare complex disease
I'd have different standards when researching where to have teeth cleaning vs oral surgery
Quoting you:
> "The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world."
Common Wealth Study of 10 Western Countries (U.S. lags far behind the other countries)
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2...
Peterson-KFF Research
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...
Numbeo Health Care Inex
https://www.numbeo.com/health-care/rankings_by_country.jsp?t...
On an anecdotal basis, I relied on the Taiwanese National Health (NHI) for years and found it vastly superior in terms of quality and cost to the United States.
Perhaps a more accurate claim might be: The quality of the health care system in the U.S. is unparalleled provided that you are in the 1% that can afford it.
> 15 out of the top 50 and 4/6 top hospitals in the world are in the US
Outliers do not say much about the overall quality of healthcare in a country. Rather obvious lesson in statistics.
Reminds me of the Russian mathematician who moved to the US after the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of his essays were criticizing American students, but in one essay he was quite frank:
Russians who graduate with math degrees are better than Americans who do so, by a wide margin. However, the average American is better at math because they still get access to some math education in university and do not need to be a top student for admission. Whereas in Russia, if you didn't meet a rather high bar, you simply couldn't get admitted as an engineering/physics/math program, and thus couldn't further your math education (I believe he said the cutoff was even before university).
Country with the top mathematicians, but country with worse math outcomes.