The U.S. has the best health care in the world. Foreign dignitaries and royalty come to us when they need treatment because they can’t get the same quality of care or the same ground-breaking treatments in their own countries.

More major health care advances have come out of our country in our generation than all other countries.

We are 51st in life expectancy, 43nd in infant mortality — having about 25,000 babies die each year, not including abortions — and 49th in maternal mortality rate.

We have more strokes, more cancer and more infectious disease than most other Western developed nations. Despite being one of the lowest risk factor nations and ranking third in health care spending, our health outcomes are not what one would expect, and certainly not as good as they should be.

So with the best doctors, hospitals and medical technology in the world, why do we lag behind developing nations like Iran and Cuba in major health categories? Stress. Americans as a people do not get to enjoy life.

Among developed nations, the U.S. ranked 14 out of 36 for life satisfaction and 28 of 36 in employees working excessive hours. We are outside the top 10 of happiest countries in the world, according to a list released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

We’re also not in the top 10 for lowest stress levels.

This is not because we are a nation that simply won’t enjoy life, it is because we are a nation that can’t. The U.S. lags far behind on workers’ rights.

Our minimum wage, in real terms, is lower than it was when the baby boomers were working, student loan debt has now reached more than $1 trillion, and jobs are still so hard to find that the workforce participation rate is the lowest it has been since 1978.

But Americans tolerate this and tell themselves it is the way it is. They are too afraid of losing their current job to demand better.

Meanwhile, corporate profits are at an all-time high, making more and more money off of each employee they underpay.

Americans have to work longer than other nations that have the privileges we have just to make ends meet. Most Americans do not have the money or the time to decompress and put living back into life. We have built the best nation to ever exist, and we deserve better.

Our generation needs to step up and demand worker fairness from our government. We need to ask why we work harder for less. We can turn these vital health statistics around with mandated paid vacation, sick leave, maternity and paternity leave, a fair minimum wage and more fair overtime laws. We lag way too far behind other nations in these categories.

Workers make this nation rich and do not get a fair return on their investment. The middle class deserves better. It is time to take the American dream out of the history books and back into the economy. It is time to demand that our representatives put our interests first.

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