PR is a developed country in a developing country neighbourhood. Healthcare is cheaper than the US but some specialties are hard to get an appointment. The neighbours, DR Cuba, FWI, are a cheap ferry or puddle jump away. So for the common ailments, you have neighbouring islands keeping prices in check.

That's a sailor's perspective on PR healthcare. Since I'm not part of their health care system I looked at it as is it worth it here or do I sail 6 hours to DR. Antibiotics there are 50cents.

We have a type of universal healthcare but its so mismanaged that its going to blow into pieces sooner or later. Most have private insurance that is on the expensive side of things given the local economy. For example, I pay $700 a month for 3 people and its not even that great.

PR isn’t a country. It’s part of the US.

It's a territory. It has an independent government, constitution, country code, Olympic team, and elections. Functionally, it is a country.

According to Wikipedia, Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States.

Also, it does not appear on Wikipedia's list of sovereign states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states

It's not a sovereign state. If you're an American, you don't need a passport to fly there.

You didn't need a passport to go to Canada until relatively recently. That's fairly orthogonal to sovereignty.

Each of the 50 states also has a government, constitution and elections.

Its a colony.

For that to be completely true Puerto Rico would have representation in the federal legislature.

Puerto Rico has it's own Olympic team. Which is sort of a basis for considering PR as a country.

Only US States are recognized in Congress. Puerto Rico, among other places is a territory which gives it a delegate to congress, but no direct participation. It's also not considered sovereign, which US States nominally are.

This has advantages and disadvantages... there's no tax, but also no Senators or congresspeople who give a hoot. Sometimes congressional delegations from places with big Puerto Rican populations will push for policy to secure votes on the mainland.

Also remember that it's a colony, and it's standing is colored by the baggage of colonialism, and there is a split between people who favor that status quo, statehood and independence.

Statehood will never happen unless there is a Democratic supermajority in the Senate.

Does Puerto Rico have its own passport? Also, the UK plays as Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in the World Cup but they aren't sovereign. So that Olympic argument doesn't mean anything.

Few people travel from Puerto Rico to the DR or even Cuba to get Healthcare.

I can't speak for its quality, but in terms of cost it's much more affordable than the US equivalent.

According to the article, finding specialists in certain medical fields is apparently beginning to become a problem.

Yup can confirm. Almost all of the rares specialist is in the metro area. Some of them have a wait of a few months. Some even don't take health insurance and are cash only since Insurances pay so low.

I would imagine an authority on Puerto Rico would know what country they were in.

And I would imagine that somebody smart enough to be so certain that Puerto Rico is US territory that they have to comment multiple times asserting their knowledge of the fact would also be smart enough to realize that the poster probably does know that but considers them distinct regions for most intents and purposes and refers to them as such, and that you would choose to just move on and still somehow understand what is being communicated. But I could be wrong. I'm not an authority on the matter.