Dr. Mary should take a look at the Cuban model for public health care. One of the best health care systems in the world. As the comments already entered show, there is a wide range of opinions about any system, most of which are based on individual personal experiences and not any sort of overall analysis of success of the programs. Some people will always die under any health care system. If they were not sick in the first place they wouldn't be in the system. No system can save every sick person, and the attempt to do this regardless of the liklihood of success is a part of the cause of skyrocketting costs. But if the practitioners do not do everything humanly possible regardless of cost to save every patient, then the lawyers are on them like a pack of hounds on a sheep.