Limited Primary Care Access Leads to Poor Outcomes, High Spending

The United States ranks lower in many healthcare measures than other similarly developed nations, an issue that can largely be credited to poor access to primary or preventive care, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund.

The US lags behind other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Per the report, the US sees drastically higher healthcare spending, although outcomes are equivalent to other nations at best. In several cases, outcomes are worse in the US than in other OECD nations.