America's Healthcare System Ranks DEAD LAST Among Wealthy Nations

If you needed another reason to push for Medicare For All, here it is: A new report out this week confirms that America's healthcare system is the absolute worst among other wealthy nations. We have higher infant and maternal mortality rates than others, along with a lower life expectancy. We are also paying a much larger percent of our GDP on healthcare than these countries that actually provided government-backed healthcare. Our system is complete garbage, and it is literally killing us. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this new report.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

If you needed another reason to support Medicare for all then good news. The Commonwealth fund came out this week with a new report explaining in detail why we need a single payer health care system here in the United States. And the biggest reason by the way is because among other wealthy industrialized countries, the United States ranks dead last and healthcare quality. We also ranked dead last in infant and maternal mortality rates. And we have the lowest life expectancy. Once you hit age Sysco, age 60, and guess what folks, the Commonwealth fund also pointed out that these problems that the United States have are all tied to inequities in our healthcare system. Meaning because many people cannot afford health care. They're driving down the numbers, they're making the country worse. Rich people are fine. You know, you break down the demographics of people making over, you know, three, $400,000 a year. They're just as healthy as all those individuals over the industrialized world and all those other wealthy nations they're doing just fine. They're just like the people who have universal health care, but as you go down that income ladder, that's where the discrepancies are.

The poorer you are, the lower your life expectancy. The more

Likely you are to have an infant or child die shortly after birth, the more likely you are as a woman to die giving birth or die shortly thereafter, there's a whole host of health problems here in the United States that disproportionately affect low income individuals, health problems. Oh, by the way, we're also number one in preventable deaths, uh, health problems that could be prevented if these people had adequate medical care provided to them

By the government.

We also, by the way, in addition to having the worst health care of all these countries, we spend more on it than the rest of the countries too. So even though they actually have government funded healthcare and by the way, the countries are just so we're all clear. Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Uh, we're spending 16 point, uh, what is it? 16.8% of our GDP on healthcare. What is it

Actually more than twice of what Switzerland pays Norway that has the, uh,

Um, top performing system. According to this report, they only spend 10.5% of their GDP on healthcare. 10%. We're paying more than that. And we don't even have universal care. So let me read this part from the report to the Commonwealth fund, spotlights four features of high performing healthcare systems that allow them to deliver far superior care for less cost than the fragmented us system. Number one, they provide for universal coverage and remove cost barriers. Number two, they invest in primary care systems to ensure that high value services are equitably available in all communities to all people meaning you don't just have to be rich to get quality care here in the United States. Number three, they reduce administrative burdens that divert time efforts and spending from health improvement efforts and number four, they invest in social services, especially for children and working age adults.