I used to love Paul Krugman. Back in college, when I was convinced that I would become a professional economist someday, I read his books religiously. However, since then he has become a regular contributor to the NY Times and has, in my opinion, leaned way too liberal in his ideology. Many of his columns just rub me the wrong way, including this one where he basically argues against free trade while at the same time proclaiming that he’s not a protectionist and, of course, avoids any recommendation for solutions to his claim that free trade in its current form (i.e. importing low cost manufactured goods from countries whose average wages are a small percentage of ours) is not good for the average American. Such annoyance aside, I have found his writing on the current state of healthcare in America to be enlightening. In a recent blog entry, Krugman alluded to a study conducted by the Commonwealth Fund which compared international rates of “amenable mortality” — that is, deaths from certain causes before age 75 that are potentially preventable with timely and effective health care. In the study , which included nineteen developed nations, the U.S. ranked dead last, just behind Portugal. While I’m not necessarily a proponent of universal healthcare, those countries that embrace the concept seem to be doing just fine.