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…
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."•…
World Health Systems Facts is @HealthSystemsFacts.bsky.social
November 14, 2024 World Health Systems Facts now has an account on the social media platform BlueSky, we're @HealthSystemsFacts.bsky.social. Give us a follow! Health System OverviewHealth System RankingsHealth System OutcomesHealth ExpendituresHealth System FinancingCoverage and AccessCosts for ConsumersHealth System Resources and UtilizationPreventive Healthcare Healthcare WorkersHealthcare Workforce Education and TrainingLong-Term Services and SupportsHealth Information and Communications TechnologiesPharmaceuticalsPeople With DisabilitiesAgingSocial Determinants and Health Equity Political SystemEconomic SystemPopulation DemographicsAffordable Care ActMedicaidMedicareVeterans Health AdministrationVarious US Health System ProposalsHealth System HistoryReforms and Challenges World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health…
Nonprofit Hospitals and Charity Care
November 7, 2024 Two new reports throw light on the level of charity care actually provided by nonprofit hospitals in the US.As noted in US Nonprofit Hospitals Have Widely Varying Criteria To Decide Who Qualifies For Free And Discounted Charity Care (Luke Messac, Alexander T. Janke, Lisa Herrup Rogers, Imani Fonfield, Jared Walker, Elijah Rushbanks, Nora V. Becker, and Ge Bai, US Nonprofit Hospitals Have Widely Varying Criteria To Decide Who Qualifies For Free And Discounted Charity Care, Health Affairs 2024 43:11, 1569-1577): "Hospital charity care is the provision of free or discounted services to low-income patients.5 Historically, a large part of the justification for nonprofit hospitals’ tax-exempt status rests on…
Doximity Releases 2024 Physician Compensation Report
October 16, 2024 The physician networking, communications, and staffing company Doximity has released its 2024 Physician Compensation Report.According to Doximity, "Doximity found that after several years of modest or declining growth, the average pay for doctors increased nearly 6% in 2023, rebounding from a decline of 2.4% in 2022."The report noted that "In 2023, the gender pay gap for physicians decreased to 23%, marking a slight improvement from the 26% reported in 2022. Despite this progress, the pay gap remains significant, with women physicians earning nearly $102,000 less than men physicians, on average, after controlling for specialty, location, and years…