The US is a clear outlier among developed countries in healthcare cost and outcomes.

Judge as of 2023-06-28 using OECD or comparable cross-national data. The claim has two parts, cost and outcomes, and both must hold. True: US health spending (per person and as a share of GDP) is far above that of every other developed country, well clear of the next highest, and US outcomes (for example life expectancy, avoidable or amenable mortality, infant or maternal mortality) are at or near the bottom among peer countries, with the gap clearly distinguishable. Mostly true: both parts hold, but on one dimension the US is near the extreme without being a clear standalone outlier (for example, one or two peers have similarly poor outcomes). Mixed: the US is a clear outlier on one of the two, cost or outcomes, but not the other. Mostly false: the US is high or low on both but within the range of its peers, so 'clear outlier' is substantially overstated. False: the data show US cost and outcomes are typical of developed countries.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Mirror, mirror 2021 : reflecting poorly : health care in the U.S. compared to other high-income countries The Commonwealth Fund (issuing body; authors Schneider, Shah, Doty, Tikkanen, Fields, Williams) · August 2021

   “The United States ranks last overall, despite spending far more of its gross domestic product on health care.”

2. E2 Mirror, mirror 2021 : reflecting poorly : health care in the U.S. compared to other high-income countries The Commonwealth Fund (issuing body; authors Schneider, Shah, Doty, Tikkanen, Fields, Williams) · August 2021

   “The U.S. ranks last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcomes, but second on measures of care process.”

3. E3 Indicator overview: Country dashboards and major trends: Health at a Glance 2023 OECD · 7 November 2023

   “A second group, including the United States, had life expectancy between 75 and 80 years.”

4. E4 Indicator overview: Country dashboards and major trends: Health at a Glance 2023 OECD · 7 November 2023

   “Mexico, Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary had the highest avoidable mortality rates, at over 400 premature deaths per 100 000 people.”

On cost, the Commonwealth Fund's 2021 comparison of high-income countries says the US spends "far more of its gross domestic product on health care" (E1), which backs the claim that it is an outlier. The evidence does not give per-person spending figures. On outcomes, the same report ranks the US last on health care outcomes (E2) and last overall (E1) among the high-income countries it compares. However, OECD Health at a Glance 2023 places the US in a second group of countries with life expectancy between 75 and 80 years, and does not list it among the countries with the highest avoidable mortality, which were Mexico, Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary (E3, E4). So the US clearly stands out on cost and is at or near the bottom on outcomes among its closest high-income peers, but it is not a standalone outlier on outcomes across the wider OECD.