I just heard this on the tv again. I have no complaints about my medical treatment, but I wonder, by what metrics do those who say this support such a claim?
Peace,
mangeorge
They support the claim with evidence of new medications and new technology being developed. Admittedly, if you’ve been catastrophically injured and need emergency medical care, and have really really good insurance, or you have a child at 23 weeks gestation, then you probably want to be in the U.S. If you want to control your diabetes or give birth at term, you probably want to be elsewhere.
I’ve wondered the same thing since health system ratings from organizations like WHO are not particularly stellar (US was 37th I believe). The only thing I can think of is that the expertise, procedures, drugs, and equipment (like the machine that goes “ping”) are all top notch, but only for those that have the money.
The machine that goes “ping” (monitor?) is the only item I’m familiar with, and it’s used worldwide.
I remember, from a while back, that Cuba was up there. That’s old though.
Sorry, bad attempt at humor on my part. I was actually referring to the Monty Python bit from The Meaning of Life. 
We have shitty infant mortality and an awful birth process in general, if you’re interested in that. We have a c-section rate more than twice the WHO recommendations, and in some places much, much higher.
So are there metrics?
$ spent on health care and life expectancy seems an obvious one.
Can any metric be translated across national boundries, so we can compare the US, France, Canada, Britain, Norway, Switzerland? All with slightly or greatly differing systems.
The teeming millions want to know!
Some things can probably be taken across boundaries, like infant mortality rate, maternal deaths per pregnancy, obesity percent of the population, life expectancy, and dollars per capita. Other things are more subjective, depending on definitions. Things like “cancer survival rate” can be ambiguous.
One very relevant metric IMHO is access:
Glenn Beck keeps making this claim, but a little over a year ago on that very same show, he was whining how awful the U.S. medical system was and how it tried to kill him.
I have to agree. If they were trying to kill him, they did a terrible job. Where are those Death Panels when you need them?
If you’re looking for pure metrics, without the benefit of context, we lead the world in survival rates for most cancers. Prostate and breast cancer are the ones usually cited.
Partly this is because our cancer treatment is better; mostly it’s because we use more sensitive screening methods, which results in a much higher apparent incidence (this includes both cancers that would not be detected in, say, the UK, but generally don’t require treatment anyway, and false positives).
In the case of breast cancer, it’s also partly due to the fact that the (US-based) Susan G. Komen Foundation has been massively successful; in a little over 25 years it’s become one of the largest single-issue charitable organizations in the world.
We lead the world in new drug development, although we’re second to Britain in applications for actual new drugs rather than drugs which complement or compete with effective medications already on the market ("me-too pharmaceuticals).
We lead the world in health care spending as a percentage of GDP, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on your point of view.
We lead the world in health- and healthcare-related e-mail spam. 
This NY Times article has a list of criteria, although the thrust of the article is that, contrary to the claims of Bush and Giuliani, the US does not have the best healthcare system in the world. Their criteria are:
Insurance Coverage
Access
Fairness
Healthy lives
Quality of care
Life and death rates
Patient satisfaction
Use of information technology
Top of the line care
I heard an interview with a guy, T. R. Reid on NPR one day. He wrote a book called Healing of America, where he compares health care systems from all around the globe.
Here is the text from the NPR “Fresh Air” interview with the author.
I have not yet read the book, but it is on my Amazon wish list. The interview was fascinating. Apparently the WHO rates France as having the best system. It’ll be interesting to read the reasons why.
Several rankings by the World Health Organization can be found here:
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
The US ranks pretty low across the board. The ranking I’ve linked to is from 2000, but the preventable death index is from last year, and is very telling.
The US offers some of the best care, especially for rare and/or complicated procedures. However, the access and availability is quite poor since a good portion of the population have no access due to cost.
My wife and I have no insurance and have been deemed “uninsurable”. My younger brother has a full time job in airport ground services, but also has no insurance.
Wow, Canada is only seven above the US. I thought we’d be higher than that. That’s scary.
Edit- Take that Finland!
It is a sad commentary on America. We are selfish. We do not care about other people. Let the poor die. Countries we pretend to be more civilized than, see a responsibility to their citizens. We do not.
Yes.
Actually, even on that one the US system supporters argue that other countries measure infant mortality differently, such as counting deaths within the first 24 hours as being “stillborn” and not contributing to the infant mortality numbers.
This article says that the USA still does not come out well, even when you combine infant mortality and stllbirth statistics.