The way they describe it makes it sound like a story beat from a Black Mirror episode.

Essentially nobody is complaining about the quality of care available here. The problem is that only the rich can really afford it. Most people will avoid going to the doctor if at all possible, just because they can’t absorb the cost even if they’re just told to take an Aspirin and sleep it off. Long-term care for anything serious is just impossible to recover from financially for most people - it literally bankrupts entire families. With how hard it is to move up a prosperity bracket, that’s a devastating blow that is often felt for generations.

I think your view might be slightly skewed because you have free care available, and can go to the US or Mexico for better options if you can afford it. Here, if we can’t afford it, we have nothing, or we assume tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

Many, if not most, of us are jealous of other countries, though. Really, this is only a hard truth for the MAGA crowd, and even that is (I think) largely the fault of the nationalist propaganda that’s been shoveled at us since we were kids.

As an American, I agree with you, though - the US is in no way a ‘strong democracy’, or much of a democracy at all. It may once have been, but it certainly hasn’t been the case for a long time.