The U.S. healthcare system cost many lives during the COVID-19 pandemic

By Kent R. Kroeger (July 6, 2022)

Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut (This work released into the public domain by its author, Elipongo.)

Cross-national data analyzed in this essay can be found on Github==>Here

“Pandemic or not, America has the best healthcare in the world,” declared a 2020 cross-national study of COVID-19 survival rates by the Acton Institute, a free-market-promoting think tank. “When President Donald Trump fell ill with COVID-19, there was absolutely no contemplation of moving America’s head of state to another country to receive healthcare services.”

Unintentionally, the Acton Institute’s study highlights exactly why the U.S. healthcare system is not the world’s best by most objective measures. The healthcare received by our president is not the same healthcare received by a large percentage of Americans.

And no issue has been a bigger motivator for this blog than the systemic underperformance of the U.S. healthcare system.

Although my family has adequate insurance coverage, unpredictable healthcare costs could compromise our financial well-being in a jiffy moment.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought that possibility to the fore when my entire family came down with the novel coronavirus within days of one another, and while none of us suffered too greatly from its effects, the night I…