Mitt Romney hoped to recover from his London disaster by heading for the salvation of ye olde Israel. Where he paused in the midst of stirring up simmering conflicts to praise Israeli healthcare. Romney said in part, “Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the G.D.P. in Israel? Eight percent. .. You spend eight percent of G.D.P. on health care. You’re a pretty healthy nation. We spend 18 percent of our G.D.P. on health care, 10 percentage points more.” Gosh, how do the Israelis pull this healthcare miracle off?

Answer, Israel has one of the most comprehensive government healthcare systems in the world. From cradle to grave all citizens are covered under a compulsory, universal system and can choose private HMOs or various packages subsidized or managed by the Israeli government. This system comes with amandate that every person buy insurance, that insurance and the companies behind it are heavily by Israel’s verison  of the Federal Goverbment. Patient rights are another big feature of Israel’s healthcare system, where every person can transfer to another HMO with no games over preexisting conditions or other technical outs for slithery lawyers to hide profits behind (More details here). In short, the system Romney praised has every feature conservatives in the modern lunatic dominated Republican Party abhor.

The benefits of this system are nothing short of huge. Israel has the fourth longest life expectancy on the planet and ranks favorably in every category I could check. Maybe the next time Mitt Romney is trying to hide his own foray into healthcare from voters, or dissing the ACA as socialism and a prelude to the End of Days, an intrepid reporter can ask him if he thinks the Israelis are socialists, or if their healthcare plan will bring the tiny nation to ruin.