>>No access to reasonable healthcase and education is characteristic for 3rd world countries. The US should not fall into that category.
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>Well Walter, that is not true, Argentina is a 3rd world country and healthcare and education (from pre-kinder to university) are free (both are a mix, as optionally you can buy health insurance so you can be treated in private hospitals/clinics and there are also private schools/universities), neither is perfect as corruption is rampant so universities might have trouble getting essential tools and public hospitals have long waiting queues and also lack basic stuff, but if the politicians would stop stealing money those issues would not exist, but both public healthcare and education are not bad, in fact they were very good not that long ago.

Same here, except that on top of politicians there's the worse kind - the IMF dictate, which somehow never says to cut subsidies for foreign companies, or reduce the number of police units or simplify the paperwork. It invariably hits health and education. Just to illustrate the point: the nearest practice here (the state run, I mean) used to have two doctors taking shifts, so you had one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Now it's one doctor, three days a week. Now instead of just walking in, you have to call and make an appointment, which is never on the same day. For some things, it's months away. And your local MD can't do much, he has to send you to a specialist, which means lots of paperwork and more delay, even for simple cases.