United States

The United States is a large, complex country with a complicated and problematic health care system. Despite its standing as a leading international power, hosting some of the world's premier health research centers such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH,) and many of the world's leading health care delivery systems, there are serious problems related to access to and quality of health care for many Americans. One of the major causes of these problems is the way health care is organized and financed in the United States. The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation in the world that does not currently have a universal health care system. There are significant information demands on health care consumers in the United States to determine ...