The World Health Organizations assessment of health care systems was based on 5 indicators:

1)     Overall level of population health;

2)   Health inequalities (or disparities) within the population;

3)     Overall level of health system responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts);

4)      Distribution of responsiveness within the population (how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the health system);

5)      The distribution of the health system’s financial burden within the population (who pays the costs).

The U.S. scored #1 in responsiveness (#3).

Some evidence shows a growing shift from public to private provision of health care [in Europe]. If the trend in the United States over the last several years has been toward a more European style system, the trend in Europe is toward a system that looks more like America's.  

(Ref: Hans Maarse, "The Privatization of Health Care in Europe: An Eight Country Analysis," Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 3He1 (2006): 981-1014); (Ref: Policy Analysis: The Grass Is Not Always Greener. A Look at National Health Care Systems Around the World, pg 35)

Wait times for emergency, paediatric, psychiatric and at-home care are all of concern to Canadians. The total economic cost of waiting for medical care is clearly large by any standards.

(Ref: The Economic Cost of Wait Times in Canada. The Centre for Spatial Economics. January 2008)

Americans played a key role in 80 percent of the most important medical advances in the last 30 years. 

(Ref: 2 - Economic Report of the President (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2004), p. 192.)

U.S. companies have developed half of all new medicines introduced worldwide over the past 20 years. 

(Ref: Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing ofAmerica, (Ref:  “R&D Spending by U.S. Biopharaceutical Com-panies Reaches a Record $55.2 Billion in 2006,” February 12, 2007.)

18 of the last 25 winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine are either U.S. citizens or individuals working here. 

(Ref: "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Winners 2001-1901", The Nobel Prize Internet Archive,)

For much of the 20th century, Sweden had a single-payer system of health care in which the government paid almost all health care costs.  Like other nations with a single-payer system, Sweden has had to deal with the problem of ever-growing health care expenses causing a strain on government budgets.  It has dealt with this problem by rationing health care - instituting waiting lists for medical appointments and surgery.

A recent study that examined over 5,800 Swedish patients on a wait list for heart surgery found that the long wait has consequences far worse than pain, anxiety or monetary cost.  In this study, the median wait time was found to be 55 days.  While on the waiting list, 77 patients died.   The authors' statistical analysis led them to conclude that the "risk of death increases significantly with waiting time."  Another study found a mean wait time of 55 days for heart surgery in Sweden and a similar rate of mortality for those on the waiting list.  Finally, a study in the Swedish medical journal Lakartidningen found that reducing waiting times reduced the heart surgery mortality rate from seven percent to just under three percent.

While Sweden is a first world country, its health care system - at least in regards to access - is closer to the third world.  Because the health care system is heavily-funded and operated by the government, the system is plagued with waiting lists for surgery.  Those waiting lists increase patients' anxiety, pain and risk of death. During the 1990s, many county councils adopted market-oriented reforms of the health care system.  This reform wave had its roots in an attempt in the 1980s to control the burgeoning cost of the Swedish health care system.  Sweden stands not merely as a warning about single-payer systems, but also as an example of what happens when market-based reform of such systems do not go far enough.

(Ref: http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA555_Sweden_Health_Care.html)