US healthcare falls further behind that of other industrialised countries

Healthcare in the United States continued to deteriorate in quality, accessibility, and affordability in the period immediately leading up to enactment of major reforms, the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

The nation slipped in absolute terms from a score of 67 (of a possible 100) in 2006 to 64 in 2009, according to the latest National Scorecard. The analysis was released by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System at a news conference in Washington, DC, on 18 October.

On the core indicators of potentially preventable deaths before age 75, such as cancers that can be screened for, diabetes, bacterial infections, and childhood infectious diseases, the US has improved, “but …