The US medical system cost half as much again per head as the universal hea lth care provided by the most extravagant of the other advanced industrial countries.
Part of the problem is that the US system isn't universal, which makes admi nistration more expensive. Pretty much everybody else calls their system "n ational insurance" and most of them follow the model set up by that arch-li beral, Bismark, when he wanted to steal his socialist opponentent best vote
-getting idea. They all work, and they all work better than the US system f or the population as a whole. The UK national health can be a bit spartan, and conservative governments have been known to starve the system to the po int where the queues get a bit long, but it still delivers much better heal th indices for the UK as a whole than the US can dream of.