Get the facts: Is health care better in other countries?

Are you so fed up with our health care system that you’re thinking of moving to Canada or the U.K.? You might want to reconsider.

Discussions about how to fix our broken health care system often lead people to compare health care in the U.S. with health care in other developed countries. Some even suggest that we scrap our current system and replace it with a system more like you’ll find in England or Canada. To make their case, they often point to the fact that the cost of care in the U.S. is so much higher than in other countries. Admittedly, they’re not wrong about that, and they’re not wrong to be frustrated about it.

Health care in the U.S. is almost two times as expensive as in other developed countries at $12,197 per person on average.¹ In contrast, health care is $6,514 per person on average in comparable countries including Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (U.K.). The higher costs in the U.S. are due to higher prices for things like doctor visits, surgical procedures, hospital stays and medications – prices that are set by care providers and pharmaceutical companies, not health insurers.

It's important to recognize that the lower cost of care in other countries comes with significant trade-offs that many Americans wouldn’t be willing to tolerate.

• One of the reasons care in the U.S. is so expensive is because our system prioritizes immediate access to a broad range of health services.
• What that means in practical terms is that Americans can find a doctor or hospital willing to provide just about any treatment or surgery they can think of. And for many people, especially those living near a large city or who are able to travel to one, that care is often available with minimal delay – perhaps just a few days or weeks.
• For more pressing needs such as the flu, care is often available on a same-day basis and in any number of places – a doctor’s office, an urgent care up the road, a clinic in the local pharmacy, or even a virtual appointment from your couch.

Choice and convenience are appealing to American consumers, but they also drive up costs. Why?

• They lead to more people having their knees and hips replaced, trying out different specialists to find relief for their back pain, and switching prescriptions to treat their chronic conditions when new medications hit the market.
• They also lead to more people receiving care that people in other developed countries often struggle to access. This includes things like being treated for cancer and various cardiac conditions, as well as seeing specialists after a referral from their primary care doctor.

People in other developed countries often struggle to access certain types of care because the health care experience in those countries is starkly different.

• Many of these countries offer universal health care, meaning health care that the government provides for everyone. In that type of health care system, controlling costs is the priority.
• One of the main ways to achieve that is by limiting access to care, either through long wait times or lack of coverage altogether.
• That approach does indeed help to lower the overall cost of the health care system, but it means that people sometimes endure long waiting periods before they can get the care they need, or they are forced to go without care in some cases.

This is why many people in these countries purchase supplemental insurance. By paying for a private health insurance plan, they can access health care providers more quickly or get coverage for services not included in the public system. Approximately 90% of France’s population, 70% of Canada’s and Japan’s, and 10% of Germany’s and the U.K.’s have supplemental insurance plans.²

So the narrative that health care in other countries is free and superior to care in the U.S. is simply not accurate.

What is accurate, though, is that the complexity of our health care system contributes to the high cost of care here. Americans have many ways to get health coverage, including employer-sponsored plans, Medicaid, individual exchange plans, Tricare for veterans, Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage. All of these options lead to administrative complexity for health care providers, which drives up health care costs.

No one would argue that the complexity and cost of health care in the U.S. are acceptable. The high cost of care in this country eats up 17% of the U.S. gross domestic product, and that money we’re spending on health care is money that’s not available for other priorities like education or social services. So it’s absolutely worthwhile to work on finding solutions to bring the cost of care down. This will require collaboration amongst all stakeholders in the health care system: providers, pharmaceutical companies, governments and payers.

But as we pursue those solutions, we shouldn’t forget that our health care system in many respects is the best in the world. Expensive? Yes. But also innovative and world-class. There’s a reason people travel from overseas to get care at hospitals here in the U.S. As imperfect as it is, our health care system has produced some of the smartest, most skilled and most innovative doctors in the world. The fact that we can schedule an appointment, get in our car, and go see those doctors when we’re sick is a uniquely American privilege that we shouldn’t take for granted.

Another reason you might not want to pack your bags and move to a country with universal health care? If you’re like the majority of Americans, you’re likely pretty happy with both the health care you receive and your health plan. According to a Gallup survey released in December 2024, 71% of U.S. adults consider the quality of health care they receive to be excellent or good, and 65% say the same of their own coverage. These percentages have held steady for nearly 25 years.