Here’s a must-read editorial in today’s New York Times. Just skip over the obligatory “yes, but …” swipe at Michael Moore.

Seven years ago, the World Health Organization made the first major effort to rank the health systems of 191 nations. France and Italy took the top two spots; the United States was a dismal 37th. More recently, the highly regarded Commonwealth Fund has pioneered in comparing the United States with other advanced nations through surveys of patients and doctors and analysis of other data. Its latest report, issued in May, ranked the United States last or next-to-last compared with five other nations — Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — on most measures of performance, including quality of care and access to it. Other comparative studies also put the United States in a relatively bad light.

Here they are:

Insurance coverage. 45 million without. Coverage unreliable. You know this one.

Access.

Americans typically get prompter attention, although Germany does better. The real barriers here are the costs facing low-income people without insurance or with skimpy coverage. But even Americans with above-average incomes find it more difficult than their counterparts abroad to get care on nights or weekends without going to an emergency room, and many report having to wait six days or more for an appointment with their own doctors.

Fairness. “The United States ranks dead last on almost all measures of equity because we have the greatest disparity in the quality of care given to richer and poorer citizens.”

Healthy lives. You already know about our shamefully high infant mortality rates. But we also “rank near the bottom in healthy life expectancy at age 60, and 15th among 19 countries in deaths from a wide range of illnesses that would not have been fatal if treated with timely and effective care.”

Quality. Under some circumstances the quality of care here is outstanding. However, we do a substandard job of managing chronic illness. Also, “American doctors and hospitals kill patients through surgical and medical mistakes more often than their counterparts in other industrialized nations.”

Life and death. For some reason, compared to other nations we have excellent survival rates for some diseases and really bad survival rates for other diseases.

Patient satisfaction. Um, we aren’t satisfied.

Use of information technology. “American primary care doctors lag years behind doctors in other advanced nations in adopting electronic medical records or prescribing medications electronically.”

See also “France’s Model Health Care System.”

The Right keeps chirping that “we have the best health care system in the world,” and we plainly don’t. It’s important for Americans to learn the truth, but as long as so many of us don’t travel and get their news from corporatist media, that’s going to be hard. So do your best to talk about this to any friends and family who will listen.