If you’re running for president, you’re required to say “America has the best healthcare in the world, but …” Statistics differ:

The United States is last among 19 countries when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective healthcare, according to new research supported by The Commonwealth Fund and published in the January/February issue of the journal Health Affairs. The study is published today.

If the United States had performed as well as the top three countries ( France, Japan, and Australia) out of the 19 industrialized countries in the study there would be 101,000 fewer deaths per year here, the researches calculated.

While other countries saw these types of deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, we only a 4 percent decline. We’re also behind Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

“It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the U.S.,” said study leader Ellen Nolte of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She and colleague Martin McKee note that “it is difficult to disregard the observation that the slow decline in U.S. amenable mortality has coincided with an increase in the uninsured population, an issue that is now receiving renewed attention in several states and among presidential candidates from both parties.”

In the presidential debate the other night, Republican candidate Mike Huckabee argued that America’s healthcare system is broken because it focuses on treatment rather than prevention. While the other candidates spoke about whether and to what extent healthcare should be funded by the government vs. the individual, Huckabee noted the white elephant in the discussion:

“We do need to get serious about preventive health care instead of chasing more and more dollars to treat chronic disease, which currently gobbles up 80 percent of our health care costs, and yet is often avoidable,” Huckabee said.

Access to healthcare is key. While many workers get useful coverage, many low-income, part-time, and unemployed people do not. That’s one reason infant mortality in the United States is among the worst of all industrialized nations, as shown in a study last year. Another 2006 study found that in every single health category measured — such as circulatory disease, diabetes and cancer — Americans had a higher rate of sickness than the British.