Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

There are political agendas in ranking healthcare among nations. Technically, world healthcare rankings don’t even use the same reporting criteria, but the biggest difference is they aggregate everybody’s outcome, not personal outcome. This measurement difference affects the very definition of “healthcare;” rationing by everyone receiving the same care, the egalitarian ideal, to rationing the best care to those who can afford it, which are two very different ways to rank. It's the same continuing battle between sanctimony and conscientiousness, so with that in mind, it's not difficult to believe that according to the discredited World Health Organization, the WHO, France has the best healthcare in the world; followed by Italy, San Marino, and of course, Andorro. The United States is ranked 37^th, which is better than Slovenia but not as good as Costa Rica.

These rankings result because, according to the WHO, the goals of healthcare have components of quality, equity, responsiveness & fairness. The word “quality” is insidiously misleading because it means the health of everybody, not the kind of care you personally could expect to get in a hospital. Equity means everybody receives the same healthcare, no buying up. Responsiveness is a subjective measure of what people expect rather than any actual measurements. Fairness is whatever anybody wants it to mean. I suggest anybody in the WHO, or believes in the goals of the WHO, go to Andorro the next time they have a brain embolism.