This is from 1999. Has anything changed? PA

US Health System Most Expensive in World

The most expensive in the world, the American healthcare system is
also riddled with problems and contradictions. In short, the American
system is a work in progress, driven by a disparate array of interests
with two goals that are often in conflict: providing healthcare to the
sick, and generating income for the persons and organizations that
assume the financial risk.

The government's annual bill for healthcare spending -- $3,925 per
person -- significantly exceeds that of other nations, because
physicians' salaries and hospital costs are higher, and medical
technology is more widely used.

The transfer of funds among federal and state Medicare and Medicaid
programs is another important component of national healthcare
spending. The American healthcare system is at once the most expensive
and the most inadequate system in the developed world.

The New England Journal of Medicine January 7, 1999;340:48, 70-76.

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Dr. Mercola's Comment:

What do we get for the most expensive health care in the world?

The absolute best system in the entire world for treating acute
surgical emergencies.

Beyond that, the system is an unmitigated failure at treating chronic
illness. Traditional medicine clearly kills more people than it saves.
Prescribed drugs are the fourth leading cause of death and the first
three, heart attacks, cancer and strokes and facilitated by physician
ignorance of foundational concepts of nutritional physiology.

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