Like many frustrated Democrats, the rhetoric of this election has made me angrier than I've been in a long time. But none of my previous agitation has matched the fury I felt during Wednesday night's debate when John McCain snidely responded to Obama's health care plan, "If you like that, you'll love Canada and England". I became so enraged that I thought I was going to burst a blood vessel. But happily, I do live in England, so I wasn't worried about being able to afford to get a doctor to treat it.

I took McCain's statement rather personally because I have lived in both Canada and England since leaving the US in 1999, and benefited not just from their universal health care systems, but from exposure to societies in which health care is rightly regarded as a human right that should be provided – and regulated – in the public sector, rather than managed by corporations. I have come to realise that it is the only civilised option. And yet America has managed to avoid it, until now, under the guise of maintaining freedom.

I was among the lucky ones when I lived in the US: my father worked for a large multinational corporation and his benefits package was decent. That said, when I was an asthmatic adolescent, my parents were sometimes paying hundreds of dollars a month, even with insurance, when I had to visit the doctor several times a week at $15 a shot and took six prescription drugs simultaneously. Coping with this added financial burden that was manageable, but not easily, for my middle-class one-income family. It would have been untenable for many of the families of the nearly five million American kids with asthma.

We are all aware that Americans are increasingly cash-strapped, but now we're cutting back on health care – according to a current Washington Post survey, a quarter of Americans have skipped doctor's appointments because of the cost. Preventative tests are becoming luxuries for Americans. Long waiting lists here in the UK because of limited resources are one thing, but having to choose between having an MRI scan to look for tumours and paying your mortgage is quite another. This price is too high to pay for the so-called freedom of choice that McCain's health care is supposed to protect, especially when the $5K tax break that he is offering to help people for health care falls far short of the cost of insurance for most families, particularly if anyone has any kind of chronic illness.

We Americans like to proudly say that our country's health care is the greatest in the world, and it is true that we have some of the best and most innovative treatment available, thanks to our top-class research institutes and hospitals. But the statistics are revealing and dispiriting: this great health care is simply not available to too many of the most vulnerable. One of the most stark examples? We have the second worst infant mortality rate in the developed world. Black mothers, who are poorer on average, are more than twice as likely than white mothers to lose babies as infants. In Baltimore, two districts divided by three miles and a large difference in average incomes have been found this week to have average life expectancies of 83 years and 63 years (guess which one is wealthier).

Yes, the National Health Service has some serious flaws - last time I was at the doctor I looked over his shoulder and spotted on the computer a slightly embarrassing permanent note on my record that I was 'aggressive' because I once argued with a doctor who wouldn't prescribe a drug for my asthma that I was used to getting in the US. But ultimately, universal health care it is simply a more humane system – something you'd think that John McCain, who often cites his experience of inhumane treatment, might be in favour of. I'd rather contend with occasional NHS mediocrity and have the confidence that if I do have a severe illness (or for that matter, decide to have a baby) I'll be in safe hands and won't ever face bankruptcy trying to pay medical bills. John McCain, do I love Canada and England? You betcha'!