The most expensive in the world, the American healthcare system is also riddled with problems and contradictions. In short, the American system is a work in progress, driven by a disparate array of interests with two goals that are often in conflict: providing healthcare to the sick, and generating income for the persons and organizations that assume the financial risk.

The government's annual bill for healthcare spending -- $3,925 per person -- significantly exceeds that of other nations, because physicians' salaries and hospital costs are higher, and medical technology is more widely used.

The transfer of funds among federal and state Medicare and Medicaid programs is another important component of national healthcare spending. The American healthcare system is at once the most expensive and the most inadequate system in the developed world.

The New England Journal of Medicine January 7, 1999;340:48, 70-76.

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

What do we get for the most expensive health care in the world?

The absolute best system in the entire world for treating acute surgical emergencies.

Beyond that, the system is an unmitigated failure at treating chronic illness. Traditional medicine clearly kills more people than it saves. Prescribed drugs are the fourth leading cause of death and the first three, heart attacks, cancer and strokes and facilitated by physician ignorance of foundational concepts of nutritional physiology.