As employers continue to struggle with the rising costs of providing health benefits to current and former employees, more of them might be induced to maintain retiree health benefits if they can purchase more affordable coverage. |
Driven up by relatively high medication and lab or test errors, at 34 percent, the spread between the United States and the countries with the lowest error rates was wide. |
Overall patient experiences often paint a picture of no person or team responsible for ensuring that care is coordinated and continuous, with a focus on patients' needs. |
The distinct majority [60 percent] said errors had occurred outside the hospital. In all countries, mistakes were more likely in patients who said they saw four or more physicians, signaling a failure to communicate across sites of care. |
The first families that are feeling this in terms of a real squeeze are those that are on more restrictive incomes, those who can least afford it. |
The lack of waiting time in Germany was notable because they spend a lower percentage of their gross domestic product on health care than we do. |
The U.S. is an outlier. |
The U.S. is unique among advanced industrialized nations for failure to provide basic universal coverage to insure access and remove the fear of financial consequences in bills when ill. |
These patients are the canary in the coal mine of any health care system. |
We're finding a dramatic increase in the total number of families throughout the U.S. that are paying a high share of their income for medical bills. When you add in premiums, it's even higher. |
We're seeing people finding insurance itself unaffordable and this study is showing that even those who are insured may be barely hanging on. It's a real squeeze on income and savings and economic security. |
What's striking is that we are clearly a world leader in how much we spend on health care. We should be expecting to be the best. Clearly, we should be doing better. |