To be fair, the US and Western Europe were a somewhat combined bloc wrt. trade and being allies. So in that respect the combined USSRs population is smaller? But purely US v USSR, the latter has always had more people
The SU and Eastern Europe countries were also such a 'combined block' though (both for trade via COMECON and militarily via the TFCMA (aka 'Warsaw Pact'). Although AFAIK Western Europe had a much higher population than the Eastern European socialist countries.
But in general, the education and health care systems were usually the 'flag ships' with easy and free access for the 'working class' (which also means extreme discimination against anybody else though).
Not in healthcare but in education. For instance a friend of mine wasn't allowed to study at university because his parents were active in the church, and that was just one reason to land on the blacklist, basically if you weren't a "good socialist citizen" (which basically means: do as you're told and keep your mouth shut) you could kiss goodbye to any sort of career beyond a shitty factory job (this was in East Germany). But yeah, if you arrived at the emergency station with a heart attack they didn't ask for your party membership book before treating you, so that's at least something.
