DESPITE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION REPORT, THE WORLD LOOKS TO THE U.S. FOR MEDICAL ADVANCES

The World Health Organization reports that U.S. health care is the most expensive in the world and ranks us only 37th in the quality of that care among 191 countries. WHO says we Americans spend the most per capita. If you believe these folks, it is France that provides the finest when it comes to health care, with Italy ranked No. 2. Britain, with its free national health service so beloved of socialist planners everywhere, ranked 18th.

Pardon us if we nurse a suspicion that this first-ever World Health Report just might be a bunch of rubbish.

The WHO report purports to compare bang for the buck spent. It compares a population's health with how effectively governments spend their money on health, how well the public health service does prevention and how fairly the poor and minorities are treated.

The Associated Press is to be congratulated for questioning many of the statistics in its own story reporting on this study. Any study that undertakes so complicated a series of comparisons as this probably can't say a whole lot that is useful.

Here's a hint: We bet that, if they could, most Italians, Frenchmen -- and Somalians, for that matter -- would gladly head for these shores if suffering a major health problem.