For Americans with decent insurance (probably 50% of the population) the American system is far better than most healthcare systems around the world, for the Americans with mediocre or bad insurance (25% to 30%) the American system is (mostly) on-par with most western healthcare systems, and for the Americans who don't have health insurance the American system is far worse than the other systems around the world. This is the reason why Canadians that have the means and find themselves in need of healthcare tend to travel to the US to get their healthcare at substantial cost.

The quality of US healthcare is #1 in the world.   There is a reason the wealthy travel to the US for major medical issues.

The cost of healthcare in the US is ...well, that's a disease unto itself.

But when debating healthcare as a ranking or against other healthcare systems, it's good practice to either separate these two factors or ensure context in your debate.  Otherwise people could easily be debating 2 very different factors and never know it.

Posting in a pizzaface thread

Oh sure I agree the worlds best specialists are probably in the US.  But those people rarely are available for the vast majority of the populace. So is the goal to have the select few best Dr's in the world or to have the overall best healthcare system for the US populace.  I firmly believe that we want the best healthcare system for the US populace. Nothing would stop the best from continuing to be the best and charging a premium for their services. The rich that can afford them now will continue to use them. It isnt like the average joe in the US has access to most of these people anyway.

Also Canadian use of US healthcare is vastly exagerrated.  A study by the Canadian National Population Health Survey found the following:

These findings from U.S. data are supported by responses to a large population-based health survey, the NPHS, in Canada undertaken during our study period. As noted above, 0.5 percent of respondents indicated that they had received health care in the United States in the prior year, but only 0.11 percent (20 of 18,000 respondents) said that they had gone there for the purpose of obtaining any type of health care, whether or not covered by the public plans.

Also dont forget (maybe you havent heard) some US Insurers have started sending patients abroad to have surgery done.

I'm not actually talking about elite private doctors that are on call for the rich but the average hospital facility or even family doctor is over all the highest quality in the world. The access to most everyone with insurance to see medical field specialists for just about every malady imaginable is invaluable compared to many countries that roll up a doctor into multiple fields. The downside is that greatly increases the costs.

More to the point, the average American citizen has access to the best healthcare in the world in terms of quality. But it comes at a nasty cost which is bloated far beyond what it needs to be thanks to the removal of free market economics.

Rich americans, because Insurance companies dont work that way.  I am picking a 100% common health care need. Friends of ours lived in Brussels for a number of years. There third child was born in Brussels.  The experience was vastly different than what a US patient goes through.  I have had 3 children and all 3 were cessarian births.  We did not stay in the hospital more than 4 days from the time we checked in until the time we checked out. It is very common in the US for a mother and child to be out of the hospital within 2 days of giving birth.  Our friends experience in Brussels was vastly different. With a normal birth the mother and child stayed in the hospital for a week. Then for another couple weeks they had a nurse come by everyday to assist.  In the US that is healthcare that the rich get. Insurance companies dont work that way. They want you out as soon as possible no matter what.

That's a fascinating anecdote and I'd love to see that kind of birthing care here but unfortunately we could swap anecdotes all day and get nowhere.

What I'm referencing is a commonly accepted and verfied understanding that the average quaity of care in the US is of a higher standard than anywhere else in the world.  Might there be cases were one nation takes a segment of healthcare very seriously and outdoes the US?  Certainly, but on the whole average is where these considerations come from.

But it's the costs above all that are the main issue.  The quality differnces are minor enough that it's hardly worth debating about.   It's the costs and the measures in place that keep them artificially high that are of concern.

then thats the exception not the rule. my sister and her husband make ~40k a year, and she has had 2 cessarians, and both times she stayed in the for 4+ days.

had nurses by her side the whole time, and had a room to herself, was served served food etc. and i wouldnt take any healthcare system in the world over ours.

someone please correct me if im wrong, but the lowest i remember george w bush was 46%. i am no politician so it could be lower.

0.11% in a  year may not sound like a lot but when you look at it over the average lifetime of 75+ years it does become a significant portion of the population ...

While painfully unaccessable, for the most part Canadian healthcare is adequate for most people's needs because most people don't need much in the way of healthcare in a given year. When a person's life or quality of life is threatened, and they're faced with a long waiting list to see a specialist only to be put on a long waiting list for surgery they start evaluating their options. If they have the financial means they seek out medical tourism, and the favoured destinations tend to be the United States due to quality, India due to a balance of quality and cost, and Mexico because it is extremely affordable.