Here are the top 113 countries…
by Eric Zuesse
Healthcare Ratings of the World’s Countries
Eric Zuesse
The latest (October 17th) issue, of the leading medical journal, The Lancet, provides the most detailed analyses and ratings ever, of the healthcare that is provided in each of 204 countries. These ratings are based on a comprehensive set of 42 ratios, such as, “Mortality from breast cancer for females aged 20–64 years” divided by “Incidence of breast cancer for females aged 20–64 years.” All 42 ratios are effectiveness-of-treatment measures. That is the only scientific way to measure the quality of a nation’s healthcare.
Here, in order, are the top 113 countries, those that score above 54, on a scale where the top score is 96 and the bottom score is 22 — which latter country (not shown here) is Central African Republic, which rated 1 or 0, totally lacking, on a number of categories. These 113 countries are listed according to their total score. So, any country that isn’t listed here can reasonably be considered to have very poor quality medical care:
SCORE: COUNTRY (and rank)
96: Japan — world’s best medical care
95: Iceland — world’s second-best medical care
94: Norway — world’s third-best medical care
93: San Marino, Switzerland
92: Andorra, Singapore
91: Finland, France, Luxembourg, Monaco
90: Canada, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
89: Australia, Italy, South Korea
88: UK (ranked as #21)
87: Belgium (#22)
86: Austria, Germany
84: Denmark, Portugal
83: Malta, N.Z.
82: Czech Republic, Estonia, Kuwait, USA
81: Israel (#33)
80: Cyprus, Greece, Qatar
79: Costa Rica, Croatia, Taiwan
78: Bermuda (#40)
76: Peru, Puerto Rico
75: Lebanon (#43)
74: Chile, Colombia
73: Cuba, Poland
72: Hungary, Thailand
71: Oman, Panama
70: Albania, China, Iran, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania
69: Greenland, Russia, Turkey, Uruguay
68: Tunisia (#63)
67: Malaysia, Maldives
66: Brunei, Libya, Montenegro, Sri Lanka
65: Brazil (#70)
64: Bosnia, Ecuador, Guam, Saudi Arabia
63: Bulgaria, Paraguay, Serbia, UAE
62: Armenia, Cape Verde, Cook Islands, El Salvador, Moldova, Namibia, Seychelles
61: Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Bahrain, Mexico, North Macedonia, Palestine, Venezuela
60: Antigua, Northern Mariana Islands, South Africa, Vietnam
59: Kazakhstan, Rwanda, St. Lucia
58: Botswana, Iraq, Morocco, Syria
57: Jamaica, Nicaragua, Ukraine
56: Georgia, Malawi, Mauritius, Trinidad
55: Philippines, Sao Tome
To find the fields of strength and of weakness in the healthcare that is provided in each country, see the tables that are presented on pages 11-16 of the pdf of the article, which pages also show the detailed ratings of each of the 204 nations’ medical care. However, that article provides no rankings, but only scores. The rankings that are shown in the present article are derived from the scores in that article, but are not shown in that article. That article presents the countries only in alphabetical order: it provides no rank-order of them. For example: the United States was one of the four countries that were ranked lower than 28 countries, such that the next lower-ranked country, after those four, Israel, ranked as being #33; and, therefore, the U.S. ranked somewhere among #s 29 and 32 among the 204 nations, or, roughly, as being ranked as number 30 or 31.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.