The entire world has long enjoyed kicking back and watching what goes on in America. This year, those condemned to stay at home for their summer vacation have found much entertainment in the healthcare follies playing out in a land many see as alternating between inspirational, infuriating and just plain baffling.

In much of the Western world, the three emotions conjured by the different installments of the America Show in recent years have come in intense and time-compressed fashion. The war in Iraq infuriated, the election of Barack Obama inspired and the ``debate'' over healthcare reform simply astonishes.

In Amsterdam, where I spend part of the year, every time I go to the pharmacy and take out cash to pay for a prescription, the pharmacist and all the customers who never seem to pay for anything watch me like I've pulled a frog out of my pocket. Then the pharmacist looks at me and my money with pity and says, ``Oh, you're American.'' She doesn't elaborate.

Those watching the passions boiling over in the United States this August have known for a long time that something is wrong with healthcare in the land of the free. But they didn't expect this.

``The debate raging in the United States,'' declares the French daily Le Monde, ``is simply surreal.''

In the Ottawa Citizen, Karen Heartfield's column The crazy spectacle in America says America's wild debate ``has made me feel extraordinarily grateful to be a Canadian.'' She goes on to explain that, ``We have our idiots, but we've got nobody that even compares to Rush Limbaugh.''

In Germany, where people know the real meaning of Nazism, TV viewers' eyes popped and jaws dropped at the sight of Hitler mustaches painted on Obama's face as protestors suggested the plan would bring Nazi medicine to America. The British, for their part, might enjoy the American shout-show, except that they find the disparaging of their healthcare system more than a little annoying.

British experts say suggestions that, for example, in Britain, Ted Kennedy would be left to die without care are the most ridiculous thing they've heard.

Clearly, a debate over healthcare is needed. The discussion is long overdue. Americans must make tough decisions over something that matters to every single person. That's why it is so tragic that the vital conversation has veered away from the facts. But, as Switzerland's Le Temps explains with curious certainty, ``This culture of confrontation is a given in U.S. politics.''

The American healthcare system has long proved incomprehensible to those living in other rich industrialized countries where long ago all people gained access to good medical care. The real mystery has been why Americans have accepted that in the richest country on Earth, which spends far, far more on healthcare than any other country on the planet, almost 50 million people go without health insurance. Others have explained that Americans are worried about the exorbitant cost they might leave their children and concerned that the parts of the system that now work will deteriorate.

Serious analysis, however, looks remote. And the possibility that Americans may ultimately decide to keep the current system -- one that leaves more people behind every day, costs trillions of dollars and is slowly destroying the U.S. economy -- is simply beyond belief. To people in other countries, it makes absolutely no sense. The Telegraph's Stryker McGuire all but throws up his hands, writing, ``It's one of those things -- like America's gun culture -- that never cease to baffle people outside the United States.''

Outsiders have a tendency to caricature the United States, drawing rough lines that exaggerate and oversimplify the traits of a complex and diverse nation. In truth, I'm afraid, the healthcare debate has become cartoonish. Consider the spectacle of a constituent asking Rep. Barney Frank why he ``continues to support a Nazi plan,'' and his response, ``Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining-room table.''

It's not too late. Now that America has provided some free entertainment for the rest of the world, perhaps it can get back to that other version of the country. Maybe America the Inspiring can push aside America the Baffling and take the discussion in a more fruitful direction, even if that provides less amusement for television viewers in Germany, Switzerland or Canada.

Frida Ghitis writes on global affairs.

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