The Washington, DC-based nonpartisan think tank The Commonwealth Fund has a report out evaluating the health care systems of seven major industrialized countries. The study ranks the United States “dead last” in the quality, efficiency, and equity of its health care system, and that Americans pay roughly twice as much for health care as residents of other nations, and get poorer outcomes. What this study highlights is that Americans have been totally screwed - for the decades since the Great Reagan Deregulation - by for-profit health insurance companies. The CEO of United Healthcare, Stephen J. Hemsley, gets over $470 million in compensation for running a company that gets those dollars to give him by saying "No" to customers who want health care. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been diverted from our health care system over the years by for-profit health insurance companies, putting that money into the pockets of wealthy stockholders and top executives and corporate jets, instead of paying for health care for their customers. This study proves irrefutably that even Obamacare, which keeps these for-profit corporate leeches in charge of our health care system, just perpetuates the giant screw of Americans. Other countries that forbid by law for-profit companies from offering basic healthcare insurance have better outcomes and lower costs, but they don't have their versions of Angela Braley and Stephen J. Hemsley sucking blood money out of the system to pay for their mansions and vacations and corporate jets. We need a single-payer health-care system in this country, and it could be done easily and with only 50 votes in the Senate if we just fulfilled LBJ's original vision for Medicare by doing away with the age limit on it and making it available to all people and all employers. I call it Medicare Part E, E for everybody.