U.S. consumers pay far more for health care than people in other industrialized nations, and yet, according to a new report, the health care Americans receive doesn't seem to be of any higher quality.

Researchers from the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that works on health care issues, compared data from 12 countries -- Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The information was compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which tracks and reports on more than 1,200 health system measures from nations worldwide.

Among the findings:

• Americans spent $7,538 per capita on health care in 2008 -- more than double the median of $2,995 among countries in the report and substantially higher than the next-highest-spending countries: Norway ($5,003) and Switzerland ($4,627).

• Health care spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) hit 16 percent in 2008, compared with a median of 8.7 percent. The country with the second-largest share of GDP for health care was France, at 11.2 percent.

• U.S. adults were the most likely to take at least one prescription drug regularly (61 percent) and four prescription drugs regularly (25 percent). In contrast, just 40 percent of Swiss adults took at least one drug and only 10 percent took four or more.

• Drug prices in the United States were the highest, with an $897 average annual per capita cost for prescription drugs, compared with a $461 median for all of the 12 countries studied. The next highest was Canada, where the average per capita cost was $701 a year.

• Comparatively, the United States has a larger supply of expensive diagnostic imaging machines, including more CT scans and MRIs per capita, and uses that equipment more. Fees to use the equipment were also higher in the United States than in the six other countries for which data was available.

"The United States is clearly the outlier," said the report's author, David Squires, a senior research associate at the International Program in Health Policy and Innovation at the Commonwealth Fund in New York City. "The U.S. spends much more on health care than other industrialized countries. Back in 1980, we were in the pack, but we have just taken off in terms of dollars and as a percentage of GDP. We are in a league of our own, and we don't seem to be getting consistently superior results for that."

An oft-cited reason why health care costs so much in the United States is that Americans are using more health care. Squires said that's just not true.

The report found 2.43 practicing physicians per 1,000 people in the United States -- the lowest among the 10 countries for which data were available. The median was 3.00.

The United States has fewer hospital beds -- 2.7 per 1,000 people, compared with a 3.3 median. And, at 5.5 days, the average length of stay in U.S. hospitals was shorter than everywhere but Norway, Sweden and France.

"We always hear about people who go to the doctor and they're not really sick," Squires said. "Compared to these other countries, we see the doctor less frequently and we go to the hospital less frequently."

And though the aging population is contributing to increasing costs, the United States actually has a relatively young population, compared with the other countries studied, and average or below-average rates of chronic conditions, he added.

In the United States, for example, 13 percent of the population is older than 65. In Germany, 20 percent are older than 65, but the country spends less annually per capita on health care ($3,737), has a lower annual per capita spending on drugs ($563) and devotes a smaller share of its GDP (15.1 percent) on health care.

"These findings are not at all surprising," said Melissa L. Martinson, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University's Office of Population Research, who has studied disparities between the health of Americans and Europeans. "They support the results from a number of comparative studies suggesting that the American health care system has a lot to learn from other countries which are able to provide quality care at a lower cost."

Yet it's not all bleak. By some measures, the United States is doing well. Five-year survival rates for people with three types of cancer were relatively high, according to the study.

But the United States ranked near the middle on in-hospital, case-specific mortality for three conditions within 30 days of admission. It also had among the highest rates of hospital admissions for five chronic conditions and the greatest number of lower-extremity amputations resulting from diabetes.

"In some areas, we seem to do particularly well, and some areas we seem to do particularly poorly," Squires said. "You certainly can't say we have the greatest health system in the world, which is often something that is repeated."

James P. Smith, a senior economist with the RAND Corp., a nonprofit research firm, in Santa Monica, Calif., agreed that U.S. health care costs are unsustainable, but he took issue with the report's contention that Americans do not suffer from chronic disease at a higher rate than elsewhere.

"The U.S. is a considerably sicker population than the others, by a lot," Smith said. "If you have a sicker population, you are going to demand more medical care."

In addition, he said, the U.S medical system is very good at taking care of people once they've become ill, compared with medical systems in other countries. "That's why many people come to the U.S. for medical care because the quality can be quite good," he said. "I would not make these blanket statements on quality."

So what to do about reining in costs?

A multi-pronged approach is necessary, Squires said -- one that would reduce fragmentation and wasteful duplication of services, avoid an over-reliance on specialists, improve quality and "bend the cost curve."

Many efforts are underway, including incentive programs and other attempts to expand the use of health information technology, patient-centered medical homes and Accountable Care Organizations, in which quality of care, not just quantity of care, determines payments.

He also said that the Affordable Care Act will help more Americans access preventive care and primary care so that medical issues can be dealt with before people become very ill and need more expensive care or hospitalizations.