The Meaning Behind The U.S. Being Rated 37th In The World In Health Care.

Back in the year 2000, the World Health Organization published a fascinating report that ranked the United States 37th in health care worldwide, rating countries like Morocco, Cyprus and Colombia higher on the list.

These rankings considered many factors including life expectancy, inequities in health, access to health care, medical responsiveness in diagnosis and treatment, and how fairly the these health care systems were financed.

Media responses to these rankings fell into two groups. One group disputed the methodology of the report while the other used the study to criticize the American health care system.

Michael Moore talked about the state of the health care situation here in America in his movie “Sicko”. This stirred a great debate and sent people scurrying to choose one side or the other.

How does one make sense of all of this?

Unfortunately for partisans of both sides, comparing America’s health care system to the rest of the world is extremely difficult. And there is no real simple or straightforward way to approach gain answers on this topic of interest.

Despite being the richest country in the world, the United States does not win the longevity award. In fact, we are not even in the top ten for life expectancy. What does this say about our current health care system?

At first look, this does not express anything very flattering. But sorting through cause and effect is one of the most difficult things to do, and in this case, some of the causes may have nothing to do with health care at all.

As Atlantic Monthly writer Megan McArdle noted in one of her recent articles, Americans die in large numbers due to, among other things, auto accidentss and poor diet. Neither of which are directly related to our system of health care at all.

Additionally, many Americans do not participate in healthy physical activities. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one quarter of U.S. adults are not even active at all. Certainly that fact has depresses our worldwide ranking.

Americans have uncommonly good access to health care. State of the art clinics and emergency services are readily available. And America is still an epicenter of medical research and development.

However, many people simply cannot afford health care because they lack health insurance. According to 2007 U.S. Census statistics, 47 million Americans, including 9 million children, do not have health insurance coverage. That is up from 44.8 million in 2005.

It is to see that there are many complexities that arise whenever one talks about health care. The fact that Americans are not flocking to Morocco to get health care is perhaps another indication that the U.S.'s 37th ranking is inaccurate.

Very few politicians advocate maintaining the status quo of American health care. Most of our current and future leaders propose “solutions” to what is presumably an imperfect system. According to a recent Gallop poll, only 52 percent of Americans are happy with their health care, a lower percentage than in India, Iran, and many other countries.

But is that because our system is worse, or is it because we as Americans expect more than they do India, for example?

So are we justifiably number 37 in health care? Maybe that is not even a worthwhile question to ask. Perhaps we should be asking what we can do to become number 1!