T.R. Reid: Looking Overseas For ‘Healing Of America’ : NPR:
Mr. REID: Yeah, yeah. One of the ways – you know, they have that thing on Britain on Wednesday where the prime minister stands up in parliament, and the other party insults him and shouts questions at him. And one of the most-standard questions is: A woman in my constituency has been waiting four weeks to see a doctor. This is outrageous. And that happens, and then the answer that the prime minister always gives is, well, obviously, the gentleman opposite wants to see us institute for-profit, American-style corporate medicine. This we will never do. You know? And they never will.
GROSS: Is that the worst thing that you can say, we’re going to institute American-style corporate medicine?
Mr. REID: All over the world, people say that. If you complain about health care, they say well, you want to move to America? You think that’s better?
Everywhere I went, people had this kind of smug superiority. They know. They know that we let people die and go bankrupt by the thousands in our health care system, and they don’t do that, so they feel better.
A person in the Health Ministry in Canada – you know, they’re kind of understated people in Canada – said to me, you know, we don’t go around chanting we’re number one like some countries I know, but there are two areas where we’re better than the states: hockey and health care.
(Soundbite of laughter)
(Via NPR.)
Our system is ranks 37th in the world right between Costa Rica and Slovenia.