We’ve all heard that U.S. healthcare services cost more and deliver less “value for the money” than European systems—i.e., less mortality benefits for the amount of money spent. Is this true? And where does the price difference come from? David Squires at The Commonwealth Fund recently collected data to compare healthcare spending, supply, utilization, prices, and quality in thirteen (mostly European) industrialized countries, and sought the answer to the question: why is U.S. healthcare spending so high? And does the U.S. healthcare system really deliver less quality for the dollar than the healthcare systems of other industrialized nations?