It is not my intention to insult any other countries, or put the US in competition with them. I am simply stating things as I see them -- I do not think America is great, we are actually a pretty idiotic country (at least our government is) and we need to get our act together. So long as it is private (probably not for long), our healthcare system will be "the best" -- in terms of quality, but not necessarily cost. Its like comparing a private school to a public school, or a private bathroom to a public bathroom. You get what you pay for - which is good and bad for US citizens (good in that we get an option, bad in that its not free). When you distribute something of a limited quantity (in this case, healthcare) to everyone for free, you have to make sacrifices -- or raise taxes even higher. Many countries in Europe pay over 50 percent income tax at the maximum rates. In Canada, doctors only make 42 percent of what US doctors do, so they come here. 800,000 Canadians are on waiting lists for longer than 18 weeks to see a doctor annually. Britain cancels about 100k operations annually because it does not have enough doctors to meet the demand. Many Americans do travel abroad for surgery because it is cheaper (not necessarily better) - for example here in San Diego it is not uncommon for people to get Dentistry done in Mexico. All of these numbers I pulled from Wikipedia, which may or may not be a good source but you can probably (in)validate the numbers elsewhere.