141–150 of 202 posts
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I'm happy paying for schools despite having no children because it benefit society as a whole. Can we not apply the same thinking here?
That was not the point. The point is that universal healthcare is taking money from my pocket and giving it to someone else.
This is the ultimate question -- which is superior: individualism or collectivism? Personally I think collectivism is far superior -- however the forces that be want people to believe individualism is superior, especially in America. This results in people, individuals, denying their fellow peers access to things. As for the question the title poses, there's no answer, because it depends on who you ask. I don't think…
Considering the entire premise of the founding of the US was based on individual liberty, and throwing the yoke of power off from the centralized power of a monarchy across the ocean, I don't see why we need to be convinced. Why does the whole world need to be homogeneous? Why can't some places on the earth (with ~7B people) value individualism and some value collectivism. Maybe neither one is superior, just differen…
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To be fair, totalitarian regimes are not always socialist, especially the outright fascist ones.
What are some examples?
Just scroll down.
The author must live in an alternate universe. I'm a dual-citizen (US/France) due to my mother being born in France. "so they already look half-dead — order coffee and a croissant, both of which are fairly tasteless" Sorry, but there are plenty of places where croissants don't suck (give Wegmans a try) - and I'd be hard-pressed to believe that those major US cities don't have bakeries run/owned by real frenchmen. "Ev…
I can't say Im one the same page about availability of guns and all the gas guzzling vehicles, but otherwise making Europe into some workers utopia is utterly ridiculous.
The most recent conversations about that issue was with a Frenchman who told me that seniority and hierarchy is very inflexible in Europe. There are a lot of people who are bad at their jobs but have a good position and will hold on to it for quite some time. No one ever loses their job for being terrible at it. And it makes it difficult for young people to move up the ladder where that ladder is.
And I found it very interesting that I read an article about the making of the American version of the Office versus the UK version. Ricky Gervais said specifically that the character of Michael had to be good at his job. This was due to the fact that in the US if you were as bad at your job in the US as Ricky was in the UK Version of the Office you'd be fired. It seems to be a common theme of the handful of French people I've met - there are a lot of laggards with high level positions in France.
The article makes a passing mention to the British NHS which is universally loved by everyone in the UK. Why do so many Americans object to universal health care yet complain about insurance premiums? Its something I've never understood as an outside observer.
1) The historical answer until Obama's administration:
They hear that it is called Socialized Healthcare. Socialized is a derivative of "Socialism". Not taking into account the myths about American Exceptionalism mentioned in the article (which are very valid), for many, many Americans Socialism = Stalinism.
Then they turn on the TV, and see health industry funded politicians selectively pointing out the worst aspects of socialized healthcare, and the best parts of the capitalist model (and if you can afford access, the American model has some great aspects). That's usually enough for most people to think that ultimately socialized healthcare doesn't actually work, even if it wasn't associated with a tyrant who's successors threatened most of the living population with nuclear annihilation.
So, given the proposition of a "non-working" healthcare system that is associated with mass murder, Americans see no other choice than in the healthcare system that they have. Whereupon they take a strong pride in the fact that they were able to achieve their own level of care. An: I worked hard to get my healthcare, it is part of my status, and now you want to devalue what I had to work for by giving it to everybody for free?, mentality takes hold.
And if all of that doesn't work to block the idea, the health insurance lobby simply ensures that media and politicans talk as IF the above was all true. Because the second half of this question is that since Obama's administration, 60% of Americans DO believe it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide healthcare to Americans. But if you watch Republican aligned media, they will simply act as if the majority of the populace is still opposed to healthcare because of the old story above. The vast majority of Americans don't have access to polling data, and naively and incorrectly assume that the average of their friends and media sources is representative of the viewpoints of the rest of the country.
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Oh but they do. You'll pay up to 2/3 of your income in taxes in Germany for instance.
Isn't the maximum percentage for singles with no kids in tax category 0, which is around 40%?
This article starts off terribly. It does not get contain enough real substance till it gets to the point about the differential in life expectancy and discusses the point about 'the myth of exceptionalism in America'. The whole line about the difference in entertainment is utter drivel. Big Brother started in the UK, there is plenty of garbage culture coming from Europe. For the record I've met quite a few Europeans…
I'm not saying this is right, but it is silly to claim that "Americans" are living poor lives, and just as equally silly not to see that America is still the sole hyperpower of the world.
This is a long debate in American history, and one still going on: is American hyperpower the result of material inequality and minority exploitation, or is America limiting its potential by letting a significant portion of its population be abused? No one really puts it in those terms, not publicly (one notable exception being 'trickle-down economics'), but this is really at the heart of American politics.
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> The lack of a decent safety net in the US scares the crap out of me. What kind of safety net? No you're not going to lose your job and draw unemployment benefits equal to your salary for years on end. This is also the land of personal responsibility. It can be scary at times. My 6 year old son has a chronic illness (type 1 diabetes) and his supplies cost an exorbitant amount of money. If somehow I was unable to fin…
Medical bankruptcy isn't really a thing in the rest of the world. That's part of the safety net, and it's hard to reconcile with the notion of 'personal responsibility'. > I don't expect everyone else to pay for my family's bad luck / misfortune If you take out an insurance contract, that's exactly what you're doing.
Agreed, it's a problem, but for the average person with a job who elects an insurance plan (the vast majority of Americans,) it's not an issue. My sister-in-law spent 4 years being treated for cancer before passing away last year. Despite running up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bills between chemo, multiple surgeries, etc, it did not bankrupt her family because they had health insurance.
> If you take out an insurance contract, that's exactly what you're doing.
Except we're explicitly buying-in. Until we have universal health care, I don't expect others to pick up the tab because I prefer that my son have the absolute best current tech available.
Many comments have this delusion of things being free. Free college, free healthcare, free this/that, etc. In this world of limited resources nothing is free. Either your tax money, someone else's tax money, or your govt through debt is paying for these "free" things.
"Free" healthcare is cheaper to provide than non-free.