London ? As President Barack Obama pushes to overhaul the American health care system, the role of government is at the heart of the debate. In Europe, free, state-run health care is a given.

But the system is far from perfect. In Britain, France, Switzerland and elsewhere, public health costs have skyrocketed and in some cases, patients have needlessly suffered and died.

Obama has said he does not want to bring European-style health care to the U.S. and that he intends to introduce a government-run plan to compete with private insurance, not replace it. Private health care is also available in Europe, creating in some instances a two-tier system that critics say defeats the egalitarian impulse on which national systems were built.

Critics of Britain’s National Health System say the policies are often driven more by politics than science. More serious problems in Britain’s health care were reported last month, when cancer researchers announced that as many as 15,000 people over age 75 were dying prematurely from cancer every year.

The U.S. already spends the most worldwide on health care. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the U.S. spent $7,290 per person in 2007, while Britain spent $2,992 and France spent $3,601.

Still, experts say that before committing the U.S. to footing the bill for universal health care, Obama should consider it has cost Europe. A World Health Organization survey in 2000 found that France had the world’s best health system. But its health budgets have been in the red since 1988.