The U.S. is unique among advanced industrialized nations for failure to provide basic universal coverage to insure access and remove the fear of financial consequences in bills when ill.

These patients are the canary in the coal mine of any health care system.

What's striking is that we are clearly a world leader in how much we spend on health care. We should be expecting to be the best. Clearly, we should be doing better.

Driven up by relatively high medication and lab or test errors, at 34 percent, the spread between the United States and the countries with the lowest error rates was wide.

We're finding a dramatic increase in the total number of families throughout the U.S. that are paying a high share of their income for medical bills. When you add in premiums, it's even higher.

We're seeing people finding insurance itself unaffordable and this study is showing that even those who are insured may be barely hanging on. It's a real squeeze on income and savings and economic security.