"Like many people who have posted here, as a European, I find it hard to comprehend why the most powerful and wealthy nation at this time can't or simply won't extend such universal care to its community."
Emma - As previously posted, the US is in a postition of needing to dismantle the existing system before it can errect a new one, or it has to do both at the same time. And before it can extend universal care to its community, it has to define what its community is. That's how the discussion got off on anthropological issues in the first place.