Comparing National Health Systems

The charts below compare the performance of several national healthcare systems. The performance of the United States and several other nations are ranked in the areas of healthcare costs, expenditures, outcomes, resources, and coverage.

You can find an overview of the US healthcare system here. Overviews of several other national healthcare systems can be found here.

Information on more comprehensive comparisons of national healthcare systems and health outcomes can be found here.

Table 1: Cost of Care (by Country). This chart shows that the US has much higher healthcare costs on a per capita, out of pocket, and % of GDP basis.
This chart shows that the US has much higher healthcare costs on a per capita and % of GDP basis.
Health Systems Facts Table 2: National Comparisons of Life Expectancies. This demonstrates that the quality of care in the US is lower in terms of life expectancy.
The quality of care in the US is lower compared with other nations in terms of life expectancy.
Table 3: Coverage (by Country). This demonstrates that the US has less coverage in terms of doctors per capita,nurses per capita, and total % insured.
The US has less coverage in terms of doctors per capita and nurses per capita.
Datatable comparing various aspects of the national healthcare systems of Austria, Canada, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States

A number of attempts have been made to compare the healthcare systems and health outcomes of the world’s nations. Some of the most comprehensive comparisons of national healthcare systems include:

Healthcare Access and Quality Index

Sustainable Development Goals Health Index

Commonwealth Fund “Mirror Mirror”

World Health Organization’s World Health Report 2000

The US Health System

Medical Workforce Training

Comparing Health System Proposals

Research on Health System Reform

National Strategies to Address COVID-19

Foreign Health Systems

Recommended Resources

Comparing National Health Systems

About Us

Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and several other nations.

Page last updated September 23, 2020 by Doug McVay, Senior Policy Analyst.