[quote=@Penny] Is America Somalia in this analogy? Every country faces those challenges, as you say, to greater and lesser degrees. is America really so much less able to deal with them then Australia, or Canada, or France, or Sweden, or Denmark, or Germany, or ...... [/quote] America faces difficulties that Australia, Canada, France, Sweden, Denmark and Germany do not face. The combined population of those countries (excluding America) is 225.62 million. The population of America is 323.1 million. Trying to design a plan for America is like trying to design a plan for Australia, Canada, France, Sweden, Denmark and Germany + another country with another 97.48 million people. And that doesn't begin to address the challenges of geography and diversity. MDK has alluded to one [i]possible [/i]solution which is to do exactly like Australia, Canada, France, Sweden, Denmark and Germany and have different plans for different areas with their own challenges, resources and values rather than trying to create one super-plan that addresses every region successfully. This is essentially what the European Union does but using states instead of national governments. [quote]I'm not suggesting that America dosen't face challenges in implementing some version of universal healthcare, just that I don't think that they are as insuperable as people claim.[/quote] That isn't what your first post implied.