Why Do Europe's Rich Come to the US for Health Care? Health Care Policy Silvio Berlusconi Italy's richest man, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, just had surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in the U.S. to install a pacemaker. Hasn't he read the 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) health care rankings that put Italy's system at #2 in the world and the U.S. a dismal #37 behind Costa Rica? Why would a billionaire fly thousands of miles to get surgery in a country whose health care system is rated so low by WHO when he could have had his surgery in any one of the socialized health care systems of Europe that WHO ranks so highly? Perhaps, because the WHO health care rankings have little to do with healing - and everything to do with politics - make that socialism. The 2000 WHO report based 25% of its score on the "fairness" of a country's health care financing which is measured by how much more higher-income groups pay for health care than lower-income groups. We are constantly reminded by single-payer advocates that the U.S. spends more on health care than other nations and gets less as shown by our low ranking on the WHO report. Their circular argument seems to be "we need government-run medicine because reports show that we don't have enough government-run medicine". Berlusconi did, however, have his criticisms of the Cleveland Clinic: ITALY's richest man has two complaints about US hospitals: bad food and ugly nurses. [...] When the anaesthetist asked if he had any allergies, the Forza Italia leader quipped: "Only to communists." He was reassured: "There aren't any left here in the States." Food and nurses aside, I wish they were right about the communists. Posted by Stuart Browning 19 Jan 2007 @ 9:32am