Not So Good

Paul Krugman is starting a new series of articles on health care and the first is worth reading. I get so tired of trying to explain to other Americans that, in spite of what they think, the American health care system is not so hot and getting worse.
Krugman notes:

Finally, the U.S. health care system is wildly inefficient. Americans tend to believe that we have the best health care system in the world. (I've encountered members of the journalistic elite who flatly refuse to believe that France ranks much better on most measures of health care quality than the United States.) But it isn't true. We spend far more per person on health care than any other country - 75 percent more than Canada or France - yet rank near the bottom among industrial countries in indicators from life expectancy to infant mortality.

People don't believe me when I tell them that the United States ranks 41st in the world in infant mortality and that U.S. women are 70% more likely to die in childbirth than those in Europe.