The latest in non-news from the MSM:

Americans pay more when they get sick than people in other Western nations and get more confused, error-prone treatment, according to the largest survey to compare U.S. health care with other nations.

Still, it’s a good thing that this topic is coming up for discussion in the public square.

“This provides confirming evidence for what more and more health policy thinkers have been saying, which is, ‘The American health care system is quietly imploding, and it’s about time we did something about it,’ ” said Lucian L. Leape of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Clearly there’s a relationship between the quality of health care in the US and the increasing gap between rich and poor. Despite the fact that we in the US spend more on health care than any other country, the average citizen doesn’t receive the amount or quality of health care that citizens of other industrialized countries have come to take for granted. So it’s great to have the WaPo talking about this issue from this point of view.

Americans were also much more likely to report forgoing needed treatment because of cost, with about half saying they had decided not to fill a prescription, to see a doctor when they were sick or opted against getting recommended follow-up tests. About 38 percent of patients in New Zealand reported going without care; the numbers were 34 percent in Australia, 28 percent in Germany, 26 percent in Canada and 13 percent in Britain.

“If that’s not a reason for moral outrage, I don’t know what is,” Leape said.