Universal health care, a system in which the government guarantees everyone a certain level of medical care, is considered by many an ideal. In countries that have it, medicine is said to be cheaper, of better quality and available to everyone. In this talk, I explain the alleged ideal of universal health care and then challenge it.

Among other topics, I discuss:

• The state of medical care in countries like France, the UK and Japan
• The impact of price controls in medicine
• How countries with universal health care ration care
• How to make sense of the World Health Organization’s assessment that France is the best health care system in the world and the United States is #37
• Why countries with universal health care are hostile to medical innovation

Image: Ayn Rand Institute