Uses information about health care systems in six industrialized countries to show that the United States’ system is an outlier as it covers fewer individuals at significantly higher costs.
Presenting a brief analysis of health care systems in industrialized nations, the author includes the history, current realities, financing and delivery of services, as well as the impact of the systems on the core sociological variables—age, sex, social class, and race and ethnicity. The systems spotlighted are those in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, and Japan.
The author’s study of these varied health care systems shows two models are significantly more comprehensive, regardless of country, and that health outcomes are differentiated on the basis of sociological variables, regardless of health care systems.
