I think the divide on healthcare nets out to a misguided notion of American exceptionalism on the part of reform opponents: they think that the U.S. healthcare system is somewhere between “best in the world” and “extremely good,” and they’re just wrong. I’m sorry to burst the bubble, but the facts just don’t bear that out.
Were you aware, for example, that a young mother in the U.S. is 11 times more likely to die in childbirth than a mother in Ireland? Or that a child in the U.S. is two-and-a-half times more likely to die by age 5 than a child in Singapore or Sweden?
Nicholas Kristof wrote what is (I think) an absolutely critical primer on this topic for the New York Times. And as it deals in facts and data (and not in opinion), it is REQUIRED READING.
