In the list of world countries and their health care systems, the US ranks 37, France and Italy are one and two.  The Repubs keep telling us that we have the best health care system in the world, but I believe that is not quite as honest as they want us to believe.

From an article on wsws.org:

Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the state of the nation’s health care system. A New York Times/CBS news poll released over the weekend showed that 85 percent of respondents said that the health care system needed to be fundamentally changed or rebuilt.

The survey also found that 72 percent would support a government-administered insurance plan, and that half of those questioned thought the government would do a better job than private insurers at providing medical coverage.

The reality, however, is that health care reform being promoted by the Obama administration, and being drafted and debated in the House and Senate, will not address the burning health care needs of millions of adults and children. The entire debate in the White House and Congress is framed from the standpoint of cutting costs, rationing care and defending the profits of the giant health care conglomerates.

Various versions of the “public option” are being advanced. None of these options bear any resemblance to socialized medicine, and they would in no way challenge the private, for-profit operation of the healthcare system.

One would be based on a Medicare-style model, competing with private alternatives in a national insurance “exchange,” open to people without workplace coverage. Another is a “weak public option,” which would be organized at the state level, and would operate somewhat like self-insured state employee plans. Yet another would allow for government-chartered but privately run insurance “cooperatives.”

The outcome of Obama’s reforms will be, in the end, that the majority of Americans will have less health care than they do at present. Indeed, the state government of California, with the full support of the Obama administration, is already planning the elimination of key social programs, including subsidized health care to hundreds of thousands of children.

In a society ever more polarized and dominated by a financial aristocracy—and with a president who functions as its instrument—no expense is to be spared to bail out the banks and financial institutions, while a “reform” of the health care system is to be accompanied by healthcare rationing and massive spending cuts.

I say turn health care into a “public utility” and remove the profit structure.