The United States spends more than any other nation, nearly $4 trillion annually, on health care. Yet, for all that expense, the American health care system is not ranked #1—not even close. So, where can excellence in health care be found around the world? To answer this question, renowned doctor and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel analyzed 11 different health care systems for his new book, Which Country Has the World’s Best Health Care?, comparing them based on dimensions such as consumer-friendliness, choice of providers, innovation, generosity of coverage, and equality of care. Watch Dr. Emanuel discuss how these different health care models stack up and key lessons for health reform in the United States, in conversation with Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times. This event took place on June 25, 2020, as part of our Aspen Ideas: Health 20/20 digital series.
About the speakers:
Ezekiel Emanuel
Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, University of Pennsylvania Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, is the vice provost for Global Initiatives, Diane and Robert Levy University Professor, and co-director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. From 2009 to 2011 he was a special assistant in the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration. He has written Reinventing American Health Care and Prescription for the Future, among other books, and in March 2020 published The Trillion Dollar Revolution with Abbe Gluck.
Margot Sanger-Katz
Health Correspondent, The New York Times
Margot Sanger-Katz is a domestic correspondent for The New York Times, where she writes about health care for The Upshot, the Times site about politics, economics, and everyday life. She is also a frequent panelist on Kaiser Health News’s podcast, “What The Health?” Before joining the Times, she was a reporter at National Journal and The Concord Monitor and an editor at Legal Affairs and the Yale Alumni Magazine. In 2014, Sanger-Katz completed a Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia University.
