BMAJOR

  ‘This can only go on so long.’ Patients needing routine care pack MLK emergency department Esmeralda Avendano, right, sits with her son Xavier Gomez, 9, left, inside a tent outside the emergency department at MLK Community Hospital in South Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) BY EMILY ALPERT REYESSTAFF WRITER  Photography by

Despite being a top spender on health care, the United States is an outlier among its peers on life expectancy. It sits well in the bottom half of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a grouping of several dozen mostly high-income nations. FULL ARTICLE