During the last six months, my wife and I have had more contact with health care plans, doctors, and hospitals than we ever had before — and, I hope, will ever have to have again. Medically, the story has had a happy ending. It has also given me a long, close look at Israel’s unique health care system, which — like practically everything else in this endlessly self-flagellating country — is the target of frequent criticism. I’m glad to say I can’t join in. In more ways than one, I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen and grateful for it.

Yes, the Israeli health care system has its aggravations. Hospitals are overcrowded. Doctors are overworked and underpaid. Patients have to deal with more bureaucrats than they’d like to. Remarkably enough, though, the system works and works well. It’s reasonably efficient and patient-friendly, it’s strikingly egalitarian in a country that is today one of the most economically unequal in the Western world, and it delivers the same high-quality health care to rich and poor, Jew and Arab, veteran Israeli and new immigrant, at a far lower cost to the individual than does private health insurance in America.