Yes, indeed, "to understand U.S. health care think like an American".
  Think like a greedy, rapacious, arrogant, cruel, capitalist American who doesn't care if 45,000 fellow Americans each year die due to unaffordable health care.
   Now you understand half of US health care.

    Now, think like a greedy, rapacious, arrogant, cruel, capitalist American - or Canadian -who believes that anything free for all, shared by all, and dispensed by government, is communism and doesn't care if millions of his fellow citizens are demonized as communism.
    Now you understand the other half of US health care.