Thank you, kind Sir! 
JFK famously went to Berlin shortly after the completion of the Wall and annouced his solidarity with the citizens by declaring that he was a Berliner. (In German, “Ich bin ein Berliner.”)
A Berliner is also a German pastry and since Kennedy, who did not actually speak German, was reciting a phrase that he had asked to have translated for him, there have been various jokes over the years that he messed up the pronunciation of the article, using, (I think), eine for ein, turning Berliner from the masculine to match his gender to the feminine to match the doughnut.
ETA: The Wikipedia article explains the joke more correctly.
“Affordable” is a relative term. There are plenty of people to whom it isn’t affordable, especially if they have a large family. As I noted in a previous thread (name escapes me at the moment) there is plenty of evidence both from research and anecdote that the high cost of GP visits acts as a disincentive to people to get medical treatment when they need it.
You also have to factor in that things like blood tests are extra, as are medicines, and the government won’t pick up the tab for the latter unless you’re spending more than €120 a month.
Yes, these are definitely areas in which the Irish system is preferable to the US. However while the cancer treatment is free, you have to be diagnosed with cancer first and if you don’t have private insurance that may mean a long wait for an appointment with a specialist. Too long in some cases, remember Susie Long?
Constantly improving? The number of people waiting on trolleys in A&E reached a record high this week. There are outbreaks of hospital-acquired infections all over the north east region. The Minister is instituting a ridiculous policy of closing regional wards in order to centralise treatment without ensuring first that the hospitals to which services are being transferred have the capacity to deal with additional cases (and without the government doing a thing to improve transport in rural areas so that sick and injured people can easily travel the further distances). The system is in crisis and getting worse, not better.
NB for the benefit of non-Irish Dopers, this is happening under a Health Minister with an extreme (by European standards) right-wing economic philosophy who wants to see a move toward the US model through greater privatisation of the health services.
Ah yes, thanks. Where was the 'dope when I was a kid???
Can you imagine a POTUS saying, ‘I am a d-bag?’. I’m thinking W Bush, speaking Gaelic, in Dublin, after having just inhaled some helium. Followed by that smirk.
All right, sorry, sometimes my sense of humor is attracted to the very. dumbest. thing. I’ll just move along now, maybe meditate on the Tower of Babel or something…