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Earlier this week, Rudy Giuliani released a radio ad directly engaging the health care debate. “I had prostate cancer five, six years ago,” begins the ad. “My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States? Eighty-two percent. My chance of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent under socialized medicine.”

Unsurprisingly, Giuliani’s statistics are a straight lie resulting from a basic mathematical error. The Annenberg Fact Check Project wrote, “We tracked down the source of that number, which turns out to be the result of bad math by a Giuliani campaign adviser, who admits to us that his figure isn’t ‘technically’ a survival rate at all. Furthermore, the co-author of the study on which Giuliani’s man based his calculations tells us his work is being misused, and that the 44 percent figure is both wrong and ‘misleading.’” The Giuliani campaign, demonstrating their traditional fidelity to truth and accuracy, have said they will continue using the statistic.

But the basic question Giuliani poses should be central to the presidential campaign: How good is American health care? The developed world is full of alternative models, fully functioning structures that can be viewed as little experiments, the outcomes of which should inform our policies. If our system outperforms its competitors, than we should amplify what sets us apart and pushes us ahead. If we under-perform, we should take a hard look at whether our model really is superior. And luckily, we have the data.

Indeed, we have brand new data. The Commonwealth Fund just released a broad survey collecting health care attitudes and experiences from patients in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Click through for the interesting stats…