While the U.S. Spends Heavily on Health Care, a Study Faults the Quality

By REED ABELSON Published: July 17, 2008, New York Times A study to be released Thursday highlights the stark contrast between what the United States spends on its health system and the quality of care it delivers. The report, the second national scorecard from this influential health policy research group, shows that the United States spends more than twice as much on each person for health care as most other industrialized countries. But it has fallen to last place among those countries in preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care, according to the report by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group in New York.