I lived in a developing country for three years. Hospital beds were shared 2 people to a bed. No sheets, pillows or mattresses were use. IV bottles and needles were used over and over again on different patients with no sterilization. There are no doctors except in the large capital city and province cities. The only Dr.s up country are missionaries. If you need heart surgery and you don't live in a city, you will die. There are NO PSYCHIATRISTS and therapists are very few, cash only, and in cities. The mentally ill are hidden away by families and badly mistreated. I mean food, water, access to bathroom facilities is often withheld. There is no mental health hospital to be treated at.


I could go on. The US IS NOT "the worst country in the world for health care". The system needs tweaking but if you need heart surgery you'll have the best surgeons. If you need a therapist there are thousands to pick from. If you need a drug, it's available and if you can't afford it pharmaceutical companies have patient assistant programs. If you need a psychiatrist, thank your lucky stars you still get to pick. Most countries either have few to none or they are rationed. You have so much more control over your healthcare than any country on earth. No one is going to pull care from you in the US because you are too sick and too expensive. The UK won't treat you and the Netherlands just kills you.


Are there areas for improvement, of course. There needs to be affordable insurance for people who don't get it from their employer, can't afford a private plan, or don't qualify for medicare or Medicaid. That's estimated at 20 million people in a country of 320 million. People around the world COME HERE for their care. Why do you suppose that is? Because US medicine performs miracles everyday. That doesn't happen in countries where care is rationed...and most western countries ration. That's why the world comes here.


I am a survivor of breast cancer as well as someone with a very complicated mental illness. I'd be left for dead in most countries. I am profoundly grateful I was born in the US and not the Netherlands.