Don't economies of scale work in medicine? Also, isn't most of new drug research funded by private companies?
I'm betting that one of the main differences between Portugal and the US is the percentage of the GNP that's spent with the military. Proportionally, the US must spend a lot more of its tax income with the military.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world
Edit: I left to start my dinner, an now it's too late.
The US have one of the highests GDPs per capita in the world. So how is it that Portugal(or insert country of choice) can afford Universal Health Care for it's population but while the US can't?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...PPP)_per_capita
Well, one could argue that AC is better that Civ, and I guess in some ways it really is, but Civ is the one I still play. As for Civ 4 specifically, it's the only Civ game that I've felt to be a real improvement over Civ 1.
Planescape: Torment
System Shock 2
Civilization 4
I have lots of other games that I absolutely adore, but these are the only games that make me feel that if a gamer doesn't have them, that gamer might as well quit gaming.
I guess Link To The Past should be on the list too, but I sold off all my SNES stuff when I was 16.