The State of US Health Care: A Study

"Commonwealth Fund found that the United States, which has the most
expensive health system in the world, underperforms consistently relative to
other countries and differs most notably in the fact that Americans have no
universal health insurance coverage."

The "study." "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care" is here:

http://www.cmwf.org/usr_doc/Davis_mirrormirror_915.pdf

I skimmed through it while carrying all my personal bias I have against any argument for universal health coverage.

1. This is a SURVEY of how doctors and patients felt about the healthcare they know.
Would crossing cultures have an impact on how a person responds to questions?
Do different cultures among industrialized nations have different expectations, attitudes, knowledge base, and priorities when it comes to health, or when it comes to health care?

2. The study also focuses on outcome reports parameters.
Does the United States have a dissimilar system of reporting medical errors?
Are there equal pressures to comply completely, honestly, and consistently in reporting medical errors across cultures?

I will have other issues with the "domains" they use in their surveys. Overall, I question the value of the data in making the implications that the U.S. system is the worst.

The authors all but conclude the lack of universal coverage is the reason for US poor scores; however, they can not suggest based on their data that any kind of conversion to Universal Health Care will make anything any better.

Is this an editorial, or social or political commentary, or a study?

dras