Ranking 37th — Measuring the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System

Evidence that other countries perform better than the United States in ensuring the health of their populations is a sure prod to the reformist impulse. The World Health Report 2000, Health Systems: Improving Performance, ranked the U.S. health care system 37th in the world¹ — a result that has been discussed frequently during the current debate on U.S. health care reform.The conceptual framework underlying the rankings² proposed that health systems should be assessed by comparing the extent to which investments in public health and medical care were contributing to critical social objectives: improving health, reducing health disparities, protecting households . . .