As much as many wanted more from Obamacare, it is still a good start compared to the previous chaotic system that left out millions of Americans. Despite all of the silly right wing talk about "socialism" it should be an embarrassment to any American that the US healthcare system is consistently ranked lower than other industrialized countries. (Being tucked between Costa Rica and Slovenia should be a wakeup call.) The "me first and forget about everyone else" attitude of the Christian right is shameful. Besides being ranked #37 by the WHO for healthcare, the US is last at #19 for preventable deaths in the industrialized world.
Why does the right continue talking so much about being American, when they don't care at all about their fellow Americans? Forget about the name calling and bashing of foreign healthcare systems, because the problem is the US system. Handing over control of the system to the insurance and the pharmaceutical companies is not the answer and it's not clear why the GOP thinks it is. There's enough of a track record to show that the US system is on the rocks and needs reform. Socialism this:
France did best -- with 64.8 deaths deemed preventable by timely and effective health care per 100,000 people, in the study period of 2002 and 2003. Japan had 71.2 and Australia had 71.3 such deaths per 100,000 people. The United States had 109.7 such deaths per 100,000 people, the researchers said.
After the top three, Spain was fourth best, followed in order by Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland and Portugal, with the United States last.
The researchers compared these rankings with rankings for the same 19 countries covering the period of 1997 and 1998. France and Japan also were first and second in those rankings, while the United States was 15th, meaning it fell four places in the latest rankings.
