This is really grim reading, but useful to understand where the statistics (especially the US statistics) are coming from.

from 4 April: “nine Georgia counties, most of them also in the southern part of the state, not only lack hospitals but have no practicing physicians at all”

“Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure.” Wow.

from @fivethirtyeight, which has been very good on the US statistics.

Scathing from @anneapplebaum.

The obstetrician’s dilemma.

This is appalling.

Statistics and maps. Grimly fascinating.

Race and class and history.

David Frum was right, and the rest of the GOP was wrong.

Paul Krugman writes.

Douglas Coupland and the USA's excuse for a health care system.

@LizHand writes.

Harry Reid: “It is a sad day when we cannot pass a treaty that simply brings the world up to the American standard for protecting people with disabilities because the Republican Party is in thrall to extremists and ideologues."

A conservative Republican is converted by experience of the Canadian system.

"As Americans, we’re brought up our entire lives being taught that we’re the best, we did everything first and that the rest of the world follows our lead. Not only is this not true, but people get irritated when you bring it to their country with you. So don’t."

Getting the right news from the Supreme Court.

"The debate over American decline is missing the point. All this talk about projecting U.S. power abroad means nothing if we can't fix our severe problems at home."

I do hope he does well in Iowa.

"Despite spending nearly twice as much, our results compared to other nations are disappointing. Take infant mortality rates. Studies show we have some of the worst results in the developed world. We pay for a Porsche but get a Yugo."

"Riding the Underground back to Great Portland Street, I felt an unexpected sense of exhilaration. I had experienced not just a visit to a new clinic, but an unfamiliar paradigm of medicine — one in which health care is abundant, easily available, and affordable, rather than scarce, expensive, and a hassle for both the patient and the doctor.…

"It became clear to me that as a matter of policy, the hospital was coping with a large number of local patients using its ER for ordinary medical care by passive-aggressive neglect. Unless you walked in with an immediately and obviously life-threatening condition, time would be your triage, not a medical professional. If you could endure wai…

"Americans, I have some bad news for you: You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin. If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singapore…

What the British system is really like. I'm not myself its biggest fan - it seems to me that the Belgian system, which has a minimal charge rather than no charge at all at the point of service, seems to do it better - but the contrast here is with the US system, and there really is no room for debate about which is better.

What happened to Melissa Mia Hall.

Excellent piece

The only hope you have of ever seeing another pay raise is if Congress passes health care reform. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will swallow this year's raise. And next year's raise. And pretty soon it won't stop with just your raise. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your …

Woman denied the right to comfort her dying partner because they were a same-sex couple

Chris Patten: We know that despite its great wealth – and its groundbreaking medical research – America's health-care system is awful. It is hugely expensive. Its costs overwhelm workplace health-insurance schemes. The poor go unprotected. Too many of the sick are untreated. Overall health statistics are worse than those in comparable countri…

A former PR man for the health insurance industry speaks out