May 15, 2025 The WHO released its World Health Report 2025 on May 15, 2025. According to the WHO: "An estimated 1.4 billion more people were living healthier by the end of 2024, surpassing the 1 billion target. The progress in healthier lives was driven by reduction in tobacco use, improved air quality and better access to water, hygiene, and sanitation. But progress towards increased coverage of essential health services and protection from emergencies lagged; only 431 million more people gained access to essential health services without financial hardship, and close to 637 million more people were better protected from…
WHO: Nursing workforce grows but disparities in access persist
May 15, 2025 A new report issued May 12 by the World Health Organization finds that "1 in 7 nurses worldwide – and 23% in high-income countries – are foreign-born, highlighting reliance on international migration."The WHO reports that: "The global nursing workforce has grown from 27.9 million in 2018 to 29.8 million in 2023, but wide disparities in the availability of nurses remain across regions and countries, according to the State of the World’s Nursing 2025 report, published by the World Health Organization (WHO), International Council of Nurses (ICN) and partners."The full report, State of the world’s nursing 2025: investing in education, jobs, leadership and…
WHO: Health inequities are shortening lives by decades
May 15, 2025 A new report issued May 6th by the World Health Organization finds that "underlying causes of ill health often stem from factors beyond the health sector, such as lack of quality housing, education and job opportunities."According to the WHO, the new World report on social determinants of health equity shows that "such determinants can be responsible for a dramatic reduction of healthy life expectancy – sometimes by decades – in high- and low-income countries alike. For example, people in the country with the lowest life expectancy will, on average, live 33 years shorter than those born in the…
Medical Debt in Collections in the US
August 6, 2021 On July 20, JAMA published an article on medical debt in collections in the US entitled "Medical Debt in the US, 2009-2020." The researchers found: "In this retrospective analysis of credit reports for a nationally representative 10% panel of individuals, an estimated 17.8% of individuals in the US had medical debt in collections in June 2020 (reflecting care provided prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). Medical debt was highest among individuals who lived in the South and in zip codes in the lowest income deciles and became more concentrated in lower-income communities in states that did not expand…
Healthcare in the US Compared to Other High-Income Countries
August 6, 2021 On August 4, the Commonwealth Fund issued a new report entitled Mirror, Mirror 2021: Reflecting Poorly / Health Care in the US Compared to Other High-Income Countries. The report compares health care systems in eleven nations: the United States, Canada, Switzerland, France, Sweden, New Zealand, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, and Norway. The report's key findings: "The top-performing countries overall are Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia. The United States ranks last overall, despite spending far more of its gross domestic product on health care. The U.S. ranks last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity,…
Gallup: 11% of US Adults Unable to Afford or Access Quality Healthcare
April 2, 2025 Eleven percent of US adults are unable to afford or access quality healthcare, according to new research by Gallup and West Health.According to Gallup ("In U.S., Inability to Pay for Care, Medicine Hits New High," April 2, 2025, last accessed April 2, 2025):"The most notable increases since 2021 have occurred among Hispanic adults (up eight percentage points to 18%), Black adults (up five points to 14%,) and the lowest-income households, earning under $24,000 per year (up 11 points to 25%). Meanwhile, there has been no meaningful change in the proportion of White adults or middle- to high-income…
Healthcare Policies in US States: The Washington Cares Fund
March 6, 2025 The Washington Cares Fund is a long-term care insurance program operated by the state of Washington. According to the WA Cares Fund website (accessed March 6, 2025), "All working Washingtonians contribute a small percentage of their income into the fund. Then when you need care, you can access your earned benefit of $36,500 (adjusted up to inflation) to pay for services."According to the Washington State Standard ("Initiative to roll back Washington’s long-term care program fails," Nov. 5, 2024), "The program applies a 0.58% tax on the paychecks of workers in Washington. Beginning in July 2026, those who…
US Healthcare Spending Hits $4.9 Trillion
December 18, 2024 US healthcare spending continues to grow. According to an article in the journal Health Affairs (Anne B. Martin, Micah Hartman, Benjamin Washington, Aaron Catlin, and The National Health Expenditure Accounts Team, National Health Expenditures In 2023: Faster Growth As Insurance Coverage And Utilization Increased, Health Affairs (2024), doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2024.01375):"National health care spending reached $4.9 trillion in 2023 (or $14,570 per person), increasing 7.5 percent from 2022 (exhibit 1). This rate of growth was faster than in 2021 and 2022, when health care spending increased 4.2 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively. The lower growth during 2021 and 2022 was affected by the expiration of temporary federal funding…
Support Grows for Government-Run Health System
Gallup recently released results from its annual Health and Healthcare Poll, which are based on telephone interviews conducted November 6-20, 2024 with a random sample of 1,001 adults living in the US. The new data show that support for the US adopting a government-run healthcare system is growing.According to Gallup (Jeffrey M. Jones, "More in U.S. See Health Coverage as Government Responsibility," Gallup, Dec. 9, 2024):"Americans divide about evenly on this question, with 46% saying the U.S. should have a government-run healthcare system, while 49% are in favor of a system based mostly on private health insurance. Only in a…
Nearly One Fourth of Working Age Adults Underinsured, New Report Shows
November 22, 2024 The Commonwealth Fund on November 21, 2024 released a new report on insurance coverage in the US. According to The State of Health Insurance Coverage in the U.S.:"• More than half (56%) of U.S. working-age adults were insured all year with coverage adequate to ensure affordable access to care. But there are soft spots requiring policy attention: 9 percent of adults were uninsured, 12 percent had a gap in coverage over the past year, and 23 percent were underinsured, meaning they had coverage for a full year that didn’t provide them with affordable access to heath care."•…