Comparing the Triple Crown

The United States is by far the most expensive country in the world for medical services, with the highest per-capita spending and the most rapidly growing rates of expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). Compared to other high-income countries, Americans have shorter life expectancy at birth, higher death rates from preventable or treatable conditions, and the lowest number of physicians and hospital beds.

There are many studies comparing the overall arrangements for funding and delivering healthcare, but few with a fundamental theoretical orientation that take into account the industry’s high level of complexity. Those that do typically examine similarities and differences among a limited number of countries.

This article aims to fill this gap by analyzing, evaluating and comparing the health care systems of Canada, Germany and the United States, which we refer to collectively as the “Triple Crown.” While our primary focus is on these three countries, the comparison can easily be extended to other advanced industrialized nations with comparable demographics.

A guiding principle in our work is the idea that the most important aspect of healthcare is not its medical outcomes but rather its ability to deliver timely, cost-effective, and accessible care to individuals when they need it. This is why our primary measure of healthcare quality, which we call administrative efficiency, includes measures of how well hospitals and clinics reduce paperwork and other bureaucratic tasks for patients and clinicians.

Today, the Administration is launching Healthcare Compare, a new site designed to make it easier for Medicare beneficiaries to find and use information about the quality of providers offering various services in their area. This tool will bring together Hospital Compare, Nursing Home Compare, and Home Health Compare, making it more convenient for Medicare beneficiaries to find quality information. healthcare compare