We're number one! We're number one! (At death)

Paul Krugman has an interesting look at the performance of U.S. health care here. But the most insightful part is down in the comments:

“so why do we feel that our health care in the U.S. is so much better than those other countries?”

Because people in the USA have had it drilled into them, over and over again, that we are the best country in the world, at absolutely everything, and that we have nothing at all to learn from anyone, ever.