Comparing efficiencies of 2 health care systems

Which of these nations has the more efficient healthcare system? (One of them is the USA, and the other is the UK.)

	Nation A	Nation B
Outcomes
Life expectancy at birth (years)	79.1	77.8
Life expectancy at age 65, females	19.5	20.0
Life expectancy at age 65, males	17.0	17.2
Infant mortality per 1000 live births	5.0	6.7
Cancer deaths per 100,000 people	173.3	157.9
Respiratory system deaths per 100,000 people	75.3	59.8
Acute myocardial infarction deaths per 100,000 people	45.3	37.9
Cerebrovascular disease deaths per 100,000 people	52.0	33.4
Diabetes deaths per 100,000 people	6.7	20.3
Resources
Annual doctor consultations per capita	5.1	3.8
Physicians per 1000 people	2.5	2.4
Nurses per 1000 people	10.0	10.6
Total hospital beds per 1000 people	3.4	3.1
Acute care beds per 1000 people	2.8	2.7
Psychiatric beds per 1000 people	0.7	0.3
Ave. length acute care hospital stay	7.2	5.5
MRI units per million people	8.2	25.9
CT scanners per million people	7.6	34.0
Coronary bypasses per 100,000 people	43.4	84.5
Angioplasties per 100,000 people	93.2	436.8
C-sections per 1000 live births	256.0	311.0
Costs
Healthcare spending per person (US$)	2,992	7,290
Healthcare spending as % of GDP	8.4	16.0

Deaths from cancer, respiratory system disease, acute myocardial infarction, and cerebrovascular disease are 16% lower per 100,000 people in Nation B, but 303% higher for diabetes. Overall, life expectancies are about the same in both nations. Nation A seems to devote more resources to standard health care, including more physician consultations and longer hospital stays, while Nation B devotes substantially more resources to high tech diagnostic equipment and expensive surgeries. Nation B spends 2.4 times as much per person on healthcare, as a result of which Nation B's healthcare sector is almost twice as large as a percentage of its GDP.

All data are for most recent year (2005, 2006 or 2007) for which OECD reports data for both nations.

Update on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 07:28PM by Skeptic

Christine provided this link to a BBC article comparing the US, UK, France, and Singapore health systems--how they work, some comparative outcome statistics, and relative costs.

Update on Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 02:22PM by Skeptic

Prescriptions at NYT reports that US healthcare is badly behind France, which by some measures has the best system in the world.  France rates #1 in rate of avoidable deaths, the US is #19.  The US has 2.5 times as many avoidable hospitalizations.  France has 31% more doctors per 10,000 people.  France devotes only 11% of GDP to healthcare, compared to 16% for the US.  Organizationally, the French system uses public funding for private delivery, like Medicare for everybody.