A readable, in-depth examination of strengths and challenges of 11 different countries' health care funding and care delivery systems. The author wastes no time in walking back the buzzfeed nature of the title and instead of coming up with a simple ranking instead looks at where each system is doing well and poorly across the issues of controlling health care costs in general, the increasing costs of prescription drugs, inefficiencies in providing care, increasing coverage for the entire population, coordination of care for chronic illnesses, increasing mismatch between healthcare systems and the population needs (often in terms of too many or too few hospital beds), increasing mental health care needs, increasing long term care needs, and ability to innovate and try new solutions for providing, covering, and paying for health care.

After introducing the issues, the book goes deep on a historical and structural analysis of the health care systems of the USA, Canada, UK, Norway, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Taiwan, and China. He covers these details in extensive (excessive) detail. To be honest, this part of the book really dragged for me, and it's the majority of the book. But policy wonks will be really interested. I did really like learning at a high level about each system. In the US, we often get a very stereotyped view of he systems in Canad and Europe when there are profound differences (such as the existence and amount of private insurance companies) between each country. And notably, every system has strengths and issues; there is no such thing as the universally perfect system. And the historical circumstances that led to the creation of each system make it really hard to say the features of one system should be lifted wholesale to another system.

In the final analysis, the US system compares pretty dismally compared to all of it's peers except China. The one exception, is in the area of health coverage, health care, and health care funding innovation. The US is up the with the Netherlands and the UK in terms of willingness to experiment and pilot new solutions in each of these areas.

One the whole an interesting look at different health care systems that avoids a superficial ranking but didn't quite avoid overwhelming this reader with details.

An incisive tour of ten health care systems across the globe, including our own, in search of an answer to whose is best --- and how we can be more like them. Be aware...this book isnt in narrative format its just a list of the different pros and cons of each country. ....and sad to say there is no overall winner, just a "best of" for each sub-category. Kinda bored me to be honest. Alot of good info though.

When seeing this book on NetGalley, I instantly requested to read it, as I've been educating myself and my audience about the complexities of universal healthcare and wanted the opportunity to analyze some of the biggest and most successful single-payer systems in the world. This book certainly delivers, through its in-depth analysis of the healthcare systems in Canada, England, Germany, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, and more.

The research presented is outstanding, as all of the systems are analyzed using the same headers and categories, which includes the organization of the system, how its funded, medical school cost and access, pay for doctors and nurses, and out-of-pocket costs for patients. I walked away with a great understanding of each system and feel very confident in sharing and discussing the ins and outs of universal healthcare because of this book.