According to a new Rasmussen poll, only 29% of Americans support a single-payer healthcare system, 46% of those polled believe that the quality of healthcare under a nationalized system would decrease. Also, 42% believe that the cost of healthcare would go up under government control.

Recently, Michael Tanner at the Cato Institute examined various healthcare programs around the world, as well as how they are rated and ranked by the World Health Organization:

[The WHO] study bases its conclusions on such highly subjective measures as "fairness" and criteria that are not strictly related to a country's health care system, such as "tobacco control.” For example, the WHO report penalizes the United States for not having a sufficiently progressive tax system, not providing all citizens with health insurance, and having a general paucity of social welfare programs. Indeed, much of the poor performance of the United States is due to its ranking of 54th in the category of fairness. The United States is actually penalized for adopting Health Savings Accounts and because, according to the WHO, patients pay too much out of pocket. Such judgments clearly reflect a particular political point of view, rather than a neutral measure of health care quality. Notably, the WHO report ranks the United States number one in the world in responsiveness to patients' needs in Institute found that those exogenous factors choice of provider, dignity, autonomy, timely, and confidentiality.