When ordinary Americans seek care for their health, they come up against a most peculiar system. The U.S. has some of the most advanced medical science in the world. It spends more of its resources on health care than any other country in the world. Yet Americans’ health is rated near the bottom of developed countries. In some of the poorest countries in the world people live longer and fewer die in infancy than in the U.S. Americans spend nearly twice as much as Japanese on health care, but Japanese live on average four years longer.