Imagine a country with high quality medical care, covering an amazing array of conditions. Care that’s provided as an inalienable right to all, and for which there are no long waits. That is never a cause of bankruptcy, and cannot ever be denied or cancelled in the name of profit, even though it’s not government run. No, this care is delivered through private sector doctors and facilities, both of the patients’ choosing, and is paid for through private sector insurance companies, though the government does require that their base plans (but only their base plans) be non-profit. And by digitizing records nationally, all this comes at a substantial savings over what’s spent in low-tech systems still buried beneath paper forms and bills, and endless ranks of filing cabinets.

Where is this hearty Shangri-la, you ask, and what Buddha’s belly must we rub to find it? Well, take a breath. Because this impossibly fit, fair, and thrifty land actually exists in the real world of tonsillectomies and prostate exams. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s called … France.

Moreover, this description generally fits Germany as well. And Japan, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland, too. (For the truly “socialized medicine” that Americans have been bamboozled into believing haunts all of Europe, you’ll have to look elsewhere.)

As a start for more information visit www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91972152 and www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

Of course, these countries aren’t actually health care utopias. Their systems have their problems and discontents, but they’ve demonstrated their long-term viability. As proof, Germany’s version is 126 years old.

Now, imagine another country with excellent medical care delivered by expert physicians. But that care, the costliest on earth, is available only to those who can pay, whether by means of personal wealth, private insurance, or public insurance. Therefore, it’s “the best system in the world,” but access to its marvels is not a right, but a commodity to be purchased. So, for those who fall through the cracks? Deadly, disastrous ironies. For example, while this system boasts that it leads the world in facilities for and doctors trained in the care of newborns, its shamefully high infant mortality rate is more than double that of the world’s leaders in this category. How can this be? Tens of millions with dollars welcomed, millions of mothers and babies shunned.

Also, since it’s legal for insurance corporations to ration care with an eye to their bottom line, that line can morph into a flat line for some of the 22,000 people with treatable ailments who die each year simply for lack of access to those miraculous treatments. In “cheery” contrast, the 700,000 people who go bankrupt each year due to medical bills are left alive, merely in financial ruin. And in another bit of perversity, since this mostly “free enterprise” system sets the global standard for bureaucratic dysfunction and administrative red tape, it fosters migraines … though it’ll provide its own remedy, one it will shill as one of its new wonder drugs (though it may only be a repackaged, obscenely profitable knock-off).

What is this dis-united kingdom of health, you ask? It’s the USA. What other nation similarly combines stellar, professional medical care with a mercenary exclusion of some from its humane care and concern? There isn’t one. In matters of life and death, no other wealthy democracy tolerates such calculated indifference. Nor do any others tolerate such profligate waste.

So, why haven’t Americans slain the special interest trolls who inflict this pox on their body politic? Because too many, for too long, have been entranced to the dogma that even the slightest check on the sway of our increasingly commercialized medical-industrial-complex would unleash some unholy apocalypse of “Canadianess” upon our apple pie heads. Humbug.

It isn’t some foolish fantasy to assert that medical care can be guaranteed to all Americans, with choice of doctors, no “death panels” (either government or corporate), no long queues, all through the regulated private sector if we prefer, and all while spending less than we do now.

We can and should have a vigorous debate about how best to achieve this eminently achievable goal. But surely, for efficiency’s sake, for morality’s sake, we cannot reject it.

Jim Wiggins is a Natchez resident.