Healthcare Ratings of the World’s Countries

Eric Zuesse

The latest (October 17th) issue, of the leading medical journal, The Lancet, provides the most detailed analyses and ratings ever, of the healthcare that is provided in each of 204 countries. These ratings are based on a comprehensive set of 42 ratios, such as, “Mortality from breast cancer for females aged 20–64 years” divided by “Incidence of breast cancer for females aged 20–64 years.” All 42 ratios are effectiveness-of-treatment measures. That is the only scientific way to measure the quality of a nation’s healthcare.

Here, in order, are the top 113 countries, those that score above 54, on a scale where the top score is 96 and the bottom score is 22 — which latter country (not shown here) is Central African Republic, which rated 1 or 0, totally lacking, on a number of categories. These 113 countries are listed according to their total score. So, any country that isn’t listed here can reasonably be considered to have very poor quality medical care:

SCORE: COUNTRY (and rank)

96: Japan — world’s best medical care

95: Iceland — world’s second-best medical care

94: Norway — world’s third-best medical care

93: San Marino, Switzerland

92: Andorra, Singapore

91: Finland, France, Luxembourg, Monaco

90: Canada, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden

89: Australia, Italy, South Korea

88: UK (ranked as #21)

87: Belgium (#22)

86: Austria, Germany

84: Denmark, Portugal

83: Malta, N.Z.

82: Czech Republic, Estonia, Kuwait, USA

81: Israel (#33)

80: Cyprus, Greece, Qatar

79: Costa Rica, Croatia, Taiwan

78: Bermuda (#40)

76: Peru, Puerto Rico

75: Lebanon (#43)

74: Chile, Colombia

73: Cuba, Poland

72: Hungary, Thailand

71: Oman, Panama

70: Albania, China, Iran,  Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania

69: Greenland, Russia, Turkey, Uruguay

68: Tunisia (#63)

67: Malaysia, Maldives

66: Brunei, Libya, Montenegro, Sri Lanka

65: Brazil (#70)

64: Bosnia, Ecuador, Guam, Saudi Arabia

63: Bulgaria, Paraguay, Serbia, UAE

62: Armenia, Cape Verde, Cook Islands, El Salvador, Moldova, Namibia, Seychelles

61: Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Bahrain, Mexico, North Macedonia, Palestine, Venezuela

60: Antigua, Northern Mariana Islands, South Africa, Vietnam

59: Kazakhstan, Rwanda, St. Lucia

58: Botswana, Iraq, Morocco, Syria

57: Jamaica, Nicaragua, Ukraine

56: Georgia, Malawi, Mauritius, Trinidad

55: Philippines, Sao Tome

To find the fields of strength and of weakness in the healthcare that is provided in each country, see the tables that are presented on pages 11-16 of the pdf of the article, which pages also show the detailed ratings of each of the 204 nations’ medical care. However, that article provides no rankings, but only scores. The rankings that are shown in the present article are derived from the scores in that article, but are not shown in that article. That article presents the countries only in alphabetical order: it provides no rank-order of them. For example: the United States was one of the four countries that were ranked lower than 28 countries, such that the next lower-ranked country, after those four, Israel, ranked as being #33; and, therefore, the U.S. ranked somewhere among #s 29 and 32 among the 204 nations, or, roughly, as being ranked as number 30 or 31.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.