Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R-Ala.) made this statement earlier this year when commenting about a health care reform package, “It will be the first steps in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known.”

You may have heard others make similar statements recently: that the United States has the best health care in the world. It sure sounds good, but as you know, you can’t believe everything you hear.

There are measures for what makes a quality health care system. The World Health Organization’s quality measures for health systems include: the overall level of the population’s health, inequalities of health within the population, the health system’s responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts), how well people of varying economic levels are served by the health system, and distribution of the health system’s financial burden within the population.

According to these measures, the United States ranks poorly, particularly noting how much we pay for our health care system.The WHO report found that the US spends more on health care than any other country but ranked 37th on its list of quality measures. WHO Director, General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland said, “The main message from this report is that the health and well-being of people around the world depend critically on the performance of the health systems that serve them.”

The WHO report also notes that the impact of inadequate health systems is felt more by the poor who are “driven deeper into poverty by lack of financial protection against ill-health.”

Another thing you’ll hear is that people in Canada prefer the United States health care system to theirs. Another non-truth. According to an Urban Institute study comparing our system to other industrialized nations, Canada was shown as providing higher quality of care the majority of the time.

So, not only do we pay more than any other country for our care and rank 37th out of 191 on quality measures, we don’t even provide health care for all our citizens. In an interview leading up to his veto of a bill that would provide health insurance coverage to millions of uninsured children, former President Bush said, “People have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.” This kind of attitude toward our health care system only serves to drive up costs – emergency rooms are supposed to provide urgent care in “emergency” situations. In this role they are very effective, but as a usual source of care they are not at all cost effective. Now the high cost of health care is requiring a serious look at the system. I hope we’ll take advantage of this situation and make real changes so we can become the world’s best in providing health care to our people.