International perspectives on the health care crisis in the United States.

The American health care system is confronting a crisis: one consisting of severe problems of cost and access, and the other consisting of significant qualitative changes in structure, systemic behavior and operation. Some of these factors may be understood better in comparison with how systems in other nations have responded to similar problems. The United States had adopted solutions which are significantly different from those of other countries, including more limited government involvement in health care and planning, and the development of corporatized medicine. These solutions pose significant ethical and operational problems.