Equitable Access to Care—How the United States Ranks Internationally

In a New England Journal of Medicine Perspective (Oct. 23, 2014), Karen Davis highlights data from a 2013 Commonwealth Fund survey of adults in 11 high-income countries that shows the United States ranks last on measures of financial accessibility of care and availability of care on nights and weekends. For Americans with below-median incomes, barriers to care are particularly striking. Davis, the former Commonwealth Fund president, is director of the Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.