What the rich get:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0204-01.htm

Health Care Firms Pamper Rich Patients
by Liz Kowalczyk

This is not the health care system most of us recognize: Internists
who promise - absolutely guarantee - not to keep you waiting for more
than 15 minutes.

Specialists who return phone calls within three hours.

A nurse who will arrange your kids' summer camp.

Surgery followed by private car service to the Boston Park Plaza Hotel
or the Ritz-Carlton, where lavish room service and French Provincial
charm aid your recovery.

What the rest get:

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=15535 US Health Care Ranked Last Of 19
Industrialized Nations in Study

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/20/health/webmd/main2027945.shtml
Poor Report Card For U.S. Healthcare

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12699453/ U.S. gets poor grades for
newborns' survival Nation ranks near bottom among modern nations,
better only than Latvia

And from:
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=364436

Key Findings

   * Patient safety: Among sicker adults, Americans had the highest
rate of receiving wrong medications or doses in the prior two years.
Among sicker adults who had a lab test in the past two years, adults
in the U.S. were more likely than their counterparts in the other
countries to have been given incorrect results or experienced delays
in notification about abnormal results, with rates double those
reported in Germany or the U.K. Rates of lab errors were also
relatively high in Canada.
   * Effectiveness: The indicators of effectiveness in the 2004 and
2005 surveys were grouped into four categories: prevention, chronic
care, primary care, and hospital care and coordination. Compared with
the other five countries, U.S. patients fared particularly well on
receipt of preventive care and care for the chronically ill, although
all countries had considerable room for improvement. Canada scored
well on primary care, and Germany ranked first on hospital care and
coordination. Across the indicators of effectiveness, the U.S. ranked
first and New Zealand ranked last.
   * Patient-centeredness: In 2004 and 2005, survey questions asked
patients to rate the quality of their physician care in four areas:
communication, choice and continuity, patient engagement, and
responsiveness to patient preference. On measures of communication and
patient engagement, New Zealand ranked highest. Germany was first on
measures of choice and continuity, and Australia performed well on
responsiveness to patient preference. Across the measures of
patient-centeredness, Germany generally was highest, followed by New
Zealand. The U.S. ranked last on nearly all aspects of
patient-centeredness.
   * Timeliness: Germany and the U.S. stand out among the six
countries in terms of patients with health problems reporting the
least difficulty waiting to see a specialist or have elective or
non-emergency surgery. Yet Americans, along with Canadians, were more
likely to say they waited six days or more for an appointment with a
doctor or had trouble getting care on nights and weekends. Across all
five measures of timeliness, Germany and New Zealand ranked first and
second, respectively. The U.K. ranked fifth, and Canada ranked last.
   * Efficiency: The 2005 survey included four questions on
coordination of care that serve as indicators of health care system
efficiency. Compared with their counterparts in other countries,
sicker adults in the U.S. more often reported that they visited the
emergency room for a condition that could have been treated by a
regular doctor had one been available and that their medical records
or test results failed to reach their doctor's office in time for
appointments. About one of four U.S. sicker adults reported these
concerns. U.S. sicker adults, along with their German counterparts,
also were more likely to be sent for duplicate tests by different
clinicians. On measures of efficiency, the U.S. ranked last among the
six countries, with Germany and New Zealand ranking first and second,
respectively.
   * Equity: Nine measures from the two surveys gauged the extent to
which patients' income affected their ability to access care. The U.S.
scored last on seven of the nine measures of low-income patients not
receiving needed care and had the greatest disparities in terms of
access to care between those with below-average and above-average
incomes. With low rankings on all measures, the U.S. ranked last among
the six countries in terms of equity in the health care system. The
U.K. ranked first, with no or negligible differences in terms of
patients' access to care by income. The U.S. is the only country
surveyed with large numbers of uninsured, and this contributed to its
low rating for equity in the health care system. But even among
above-average income respondents, the U.S. lagged considerably behind
their counterparts in other countries.