Australian political ad: A health care system like America’s? OH NO!

A young American nurse says she treats someone everyday who’s struggling to pay a medical bill. “Treatment for cancer could run tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in the U.S.,” she says. A creepy pulsing noise plays in the background.

“The Federal Coalition wants to privatize public health care, just like in America,” a narrator warns. “We can’t put profits before patients.”

It’s a political ad from Australia, warning that one of the political group’s there will turn the Australian health care system into one like the United States.

Here at PolitiFact, we’re used to seeing ads that warn the U.S. health care system will be changed to some foreign model, or that European nations provide poor health care. Typically, we’ve found little evidence to support those claims.

Australian voters should rest easy. PolitiFact Australia found the ad’s claims were overblown. It gave a Pants on Fire to the ad’s creators, the New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association. Read their full report to see how the warnings against an imminent Americanization of Australia’s health care system are overblown.