(FORTUNE Magazine) – It's easy to see why health care is one of the most wrenching issues in the U.S. when you compare costs and benefits with those of other industrial societies. The U.S. pays the most in both per capita terms and as a share of GDP, and gets the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates. Hardly anyone disputes that the U.S. system is wasteful and managerially backward. But America also pays a price for trying hard -- for example, its infant mortality rate is high partly because no other country works harder to save high-risk premature and underweight babies. Nor do any others spend more to develop advanced technologies. The international comparisons also reveal another culprit. ''The burden of social problems on health care in the U.S. far exceeds that of any other developed country,'' says Leroy L. Schwartz, a medical doctor who heads Health Policy International, a Princeton, New Jersey, research group. Murders, violence, drug-exposed infants -- the U.S. leads in all three categories and also has the highest rate of AIDS infection in the developed world.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: SOURCE: OECD CAPTION: HEALTH CARE AT A GLANCE

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: SOURCE: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION CAPTION: HOMICIDE SERIOUS ASSAULT DRUG OFFENSES AIDS CASE RATE