American private healthcare provides less quality AND more waits than foreign universal healthcare models

The winner? Germany is the overall winner, in my estimate, out of six surveyed countries.

At less than half the per-person cost of U.S. insurance, it weighed in as less expensive than Canada, though more than the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Plus, waiting times for access were less than in the U.S.

So much for that moldy oldie that, even if universal health care pays the bills, you can never see the doctor!

Here's the details of the study:

“The U.S. health care system ranks last compared with five other nations on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes,” the non-profit group, which studies health care issues, said in a statement.

Canada rates second worst out of the six overall. Germany scored highest, followed by Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

“The United States is not getting value for the money that is spent on health care,” Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis said in a telephone interview.

The group has consistently found that the United States, the only one of the six nations that does not provide universal health care, scores more poorly than the others on many measures of health care.

Congress, President George W. Bush, many employers and insurers have all agreed in recent months to overhaul the U.S. health care system - an uncoordinated conglomeration of employer-funded care, private health insurance and government programs.

The current system leaves about 45 million people with no insurance at all, according to U.S. government estimates from 2005, and many studies have shown most of these people do not receive preventive services that not only keep them healthier, but reduce long-term costs.

Davis said the fund's researchers looked at hard data for the report.

“It is pretty indisputable that we spend twice what other countries spend on average,” she said.

Per-capita health spending in the United States in 2004 was $6,102, twice that of Germany, which spent $3,005. Canada spent $3,165, New Zealand $2,083 and Australia $2,876, while Britain spent $2,546 per person.