ABC’s resident conservative John Stossel takes on a 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) rating of 191 nations that “Sicko” used to document the low state of U.S. health care. In the WHO rankings, the U.S. finished 37th, behind nations like Morocco, Cyprus and Costa Rica. Finishing first and second were France and Italy. According to Stossel:
U.S. medical system problems stem from departures from free-market principles. The system is riddled with tax manipulation, costly insurance mandates and bureaucratic interference. And 86% of health-care dollars are spent by third parties, which means that most consumers exercise no cost-consciousness.
WHO judged a country's quality of health on life expectancy. But we have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. Similarly, our homicide rate is 10 times higher than in the U.K., eight times higher than in France, and five times greater than in Canada. Adjusted for these "fatal injury" rates, U.S. life expectancy is actually higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation.
Diet and lack of exercise bring down average life expectancy.
We are downgraded for being less socialistic than other nations. WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how "fairly" health care of any quality is "distributed." That means a country with high-quality care overall but "unequal distribution" would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution.
The U.S. ranking is influenced heavily by the 45 million without medical insurance. Yet the figure is misleading: According to the Census Bureau, 37% live in households making more than $50,000 a year; 19% are in households making more than $75,000 a year; 20% are not citizens, and 33% are eligible for existing government programs but are not enrolled. The U.S. ranks at the top for quality of care and innovation, including of life-saving drugs, and people come here for care, not the reverse.
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