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.
> Individual rights are what makes the West successful compared to the rest of the world.
We're talking about Western-style democratic socialism, as found in Sweden, Norway, Germany, England, etc. here. Terrifying totalitarian hellholes they're not.
I agree with what you wrote, but why does the US have be the same as those countries? Why can't there be a variety of implementations of government such that different humans can choose different situations for their own needs? I'd still like to see Cuba change to a fully democratic communist state, for example.
I wonder if this is not an oxymoron. In my view, democracy means (a lot of) politics, while communism means no or very little politics (in a true sense of the word).
But when you discover that a system has way better objective outcomes, e.g. in the case of drug policy or healthcare policy, it’s a shame not to upgrade to a similar system.
Really, the US has a lot of good systems, but healthcare isn’t one of them.
What do you think will happen when these countries massive debts come due? I don't think they'll be peaceful then. They are living on the backs of their unborn children right now.
At the moment the American quality of life is objective worse. The American healthcare system of today is killing people or bankrupting them, but Sweden's quality may one day decline to American levels, so that's a strong enough argument to say it's the worse choice?
Almost Every western country is in a massive hole of debt, the us included.
I think it is more sustainable than other systems, especially the one practiced in the US.
Also, please note than in the US, public spending on health is already huge, and there’s a huge private spending as well - iirc about 20% of us GDP is spent on healthcare, which is double any other western country, and with worse results to boot. It is already unsustainable.
I have had a chance to speak with quite a few people who spent some time living in a country with universal healthcare, and not a single one would give it up or think that the American system is better. Or even acceptable, for that matter. Public healthcare does not mean lack of private healthcare.
I’ve heard Canadians complain about the lack of private options awhile back, but I think even that is solved now.
Yes, I have never met anybody who has actually lived in a country with universal healthcare and in the US who didn't believe that the US system is an insane nightmare. There maybe be problems with individual systems but the US is by far the worst.
I think it has to do with how easy it is to think about. I really believe there are a lot of people on the right whose implicit preference is to pay $10000/yr for healthcare to a private entity rather than $5000/yr to the government. When I get a tax bill the numbers are right there in black, this is how much was stolen from me. When I get any other sort of bill how much was 'stolen' is a portion but I have no idea how much so I basically write off the whole amount as necessary. It's probably the result of cold-war propaganda that seems to have never died off.
One thing to consider is that it’s very unlikely America could actually cut half of all costs by simply going universal. We’d have to ration care and implement price controls. Who knows if that is even politically viable.
And even we could reduce it by half, the only politically viable method of funding is a highly progressive tax.
People on hacker news would likely pay 20k a year and the average person would pay 2,500 or less.
>One thing to consider is that it’s very unlikely America could actually cut half of all costs by simply going universal.
It was just an example, but it's pretty clear that costs would be cut.
>We’d have to ration care and implement price controls. Who knows if that is even politically viable.
We already ration care, we just do it by how much money you have. Price controls? Pretty politically viable, just march some affected people up on stage. Hell you don't even need price controls, just make overseas drug importing legal. Right now we're a totally captive market, that's why they charge so much.
>And even we could reduce it by half, the only politically viable method of funding is a highly progressive tax.
Okay? Sounds fine to me.
>People on hacker news would likely pay 20k a year and the average person would pay 2,500 or less.
I mean that's how progressive taxes work and I don't have a problem with it, although your numbers are obviously pulled straight from your ass.
Yes, go tell physicians that you’ll cut their income to less than half of what they are getting now. Why wouldn’t they like the plan? The US healthcare system is very bad, but not easy to fix.
Many Americans are insulated from the actual cost of their healthcare via employer-provided insurance. I used to pay like $30/month when working for a major organization, but purchasing directly on the exchanges runs my family $2,000/month. The underlying costs are likely pretty similar, and the difference was likely factored into my salary, but it results in sticker shock that people often blame on "Obamacare".
If you ever have a serious illness or an accident money will be taken out of someone's pocket and given to you. Unless you don't have insurance and refuse treatment.
We spend about the same as other OECD countries in public healthcare funding, plus we spend a bunch more privately, for an overall healthcare spend that's the highest per-capita in the world, and outcomes that aren't as good.
« More people are unhappy with the NHS than satisfied for the first time in a poll of the public run by Britain’s doctors, and 70% say they think the health service is going in the wrong direction. »
> Department of Health (DH) figures show that the amount of its funding that has gone to “independent sector providers” more than doubled from £4.1bn in 2009-10, Labour’s last year in power, to £8.7bn in 2015-16.
> Slow-release privatisation has also seen the percentage of the DH budget finding its way into private hands rising from 4% in 2009-10 to 8% in the last financial year.
That "wrong direction" poll may well reflect concern over the slow privatization of the NHS described here.
As the other reply sources, the "wrong direction" the public thinks the service is going in is increased privatisation as a result of austerity measures, typically. This is also why dissatisfaction is happening "for the first time" - up until now, the standard of national healthcare has been high, to an internationally-recognised extent.
I presume because they are under the impression that universal healthcare would be worse.
Often Canadian health care is cited in America as an example of a crappy system because some Canadians will travel to the US for surgeries.
Most of it is unfounded, takes anecdotes, and paints broad strokes. As opposed to looking at it as a whole, and doesn't consider the underlying costs. It would be nice if we could have a pragmatic conversation about it.
The GDP portion that the US spends on public health care (Medicaid, medicare) is already comparable to the total portion other nations spend on universal healthcare. So insurance is just systemic robbery, its private yet mandatory spending. Costs are high as a result of paying for useless insurance infrastructure.
Finally Americans are vey independent, as in I'll make my own keep and provide for my family, I don't want to rely on the state.
Correct. I work in healthcare finance, and can guarantee you that a "Medicare for all" system would bankrupt all US Healthcare providers almost instantly.
The real question is: why don't Americans understand how much they are already paying for other people's healthcare? If you get treatment at a provider that receives DSP reimbursements, you are not only paying for medicare but paying again out of pocket to subsidize that hospital for providing financially unsustainable medicare treatments.
We're all waiting for California to prove that Universal Healthcare is possible at scale in the US. Smart money isn't holding their breath though- lawmakers know it would be career suicide to give them what they wish for.
i think lots of people in america view politics as a sport and root for their team, irrespective of its policies. and the republicans have been steered against single payer or other healtcare reforms, so their fans all follow their lead, simple as that.
There's an entire class of super-rich people which have been working at subverting the common good and have richly bought congressmen and newspapers to propagandize about the supposedly inherent superiority of individualism. This is at the root of the settler colonialist agricultural society but has been transformed and multiplied a thousandfold by corporations which have, ironically, built their early wealth on the European reconstruction. Read Manufacturing Consent for the rest. :)
The Americans that reject it do so because of a lack of education. The educated classes generally don't draw a line in the sand on most things, regardless of where you live in the world. The uneducated have opinions that are distorted because they accept whatever reality is fed to them by the side they prefer to align their views with.
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.
A large part of that is because traveling abroad is prohibitively expensive for a lot of people (which the article touches on). Especially if you don't live on one of the coasts. California to London is over 10 hours of flight time. I don't think Europeans fully appreciate how huge the United States is. Texas alone is bigger than every country in Europe, save Turkey.
The U.S. is a huge country and most people have little desire to sit in a cattle-car (airplane) for 8-12 hours. A 12 hour drive to Florida is much more palatable for most people than a 12 hour plane ride to a country where they don't speak the language (typically.)
Which I guess begs a follow-up question: why aren't they more outward-looking? This is the question the article asks halfway through, but it still ends without much of an answer.
As someone living in Ireland, where many things are of similar low quality (e.g. healthcare), we are outward-looking but only in one specific way: we look toward the US for a lot of things. I've often asked this question in a different way: why do we look to the US and not elsewhere (e.g. the UK, France, other EU states, where healthcare is actually ok). The two answers I've come up with are anglophone bias and anti-English sentiment arising out of our history, only one of which applies to the US, and yet they definitely don't look too us, to Canada, to other anglophone countries. So I suspect I'm wrong on this explanation in both cases...
Yes, of course other countries, but most Americans have limited understanding of the way of life of people in other countries. Points of reference exist but the majority of Americans aren't familiar enough with those points of reference to make a comparison.
Maybe it's because personal experience is usually not enough to make such sweeping generalizations? All we know is this person liked the places they lived in Europe better than the places they lived in the US. But what about the places they haven't lived yet?
European cities are not all the same. Similarly for US cities.
I have been in most capitals in Europe, and in quite a few cities of USA, and totally agree with the story. Of course there are some individual exceptions, but he is talking about the feeling from different cities, the state of public transportation or healthcare, which IMHO is fairly generalizable.
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 Americans will ever be convinced collectivism is superior until there's some organization or company created within the States that ends up being far superior to everything else. Only then will people see the overwhelming advantage that comes with the "spread", which is the main advantage of collectivism (meaning the spread of burden and the spread of fortune).
"I don't think Americans will ever be convinced collectivism is superior until there's some organization or company created within the States that ends up being far superior to everything else."
Exactly. Not sure why you replied to my original comment with "calling EU collectivist is a stretch" when I didn't mention the EU. You should reply to the top most post, not me, it sounds like. It's really not a big deal, :).
Who mentioned EU? There's a broad mixture of different political approaches right across the EU. Some of the wealthier states do appear to have a strong social-democratic leaning but maybe that's just 'cause they can afford it?
A comprehensive socioeconomic fabric costs a lot to maintain. You have to have a base of taxpayers who are willing to pay it and who feel they get the value for their money.
Except you don't have to buy into one exclusively for everything. Which approach is superior, which is to say, which approach is more efficient is a factual, empirical question that can be answered by science.
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 different?
You're conflating things -- collectivism and individualism are not necessarily defined by the system of government.
I'd argue, that collectivism is inherently superior for most albeit with a lower magnitude of quality for most and individualism is the inverse, with a higher magnitude of quality for some and is inherently superior for some.
However I'd also say that individualism is more resilient as it is inherently decentralized. You're right in that one cannot necessarily be better in all ways, but for the traits the article speaks to, I'd argue collectivism is superior.
Individuals don't have a choice of where they are born; neither do most people have a real choice of migrating to the other side of the ocean. If the thought even occurs to them. Cultural blindness is a thing, and especially troublesome in the case of American exceptionalism and general disinterest in other cultures.
There are genuine tradeoffs to be had, and space for cultures to take different positions on the Pareto frontier, sure. But there are also deadweight losses, unforced errors where one culture's approach is just worse by every metric, and those would seem to be cases where we could learn. E.g. US healthcare seems to somehow manage to be uniquely bad - more expensive on average, while excluding or bankrupting people, without offering patients a meaningful kind of choice in most cases. Things like a patient not being able to afford non-emergency treatment until their condition develops into something that needs more expensive emergency treatment (which hospitals aren't allowed to refuse) seem lose-lose.
>What’s the most egregious thing the boomers have done in your opinion?
>I'll give you something abstract and something concrete. On an abstract level, I think the worst thing they’ve done is destroy a sense of social solidarity, a sense of commitment to fellow citizens. That ethos is gone and it’s been replaced by a cult of individualism. It’s hard to overstate how damaging this is.
It’s funny to me that that article talks about everyone loving to bash Millenials, on an article bashing boomers, which you can throw on the massive pile of other media that bashes boomers.
Depends whether that collectivism is forced or not. Because the forced one has been tried - and it's horrifying.
Funny thing about individualists: they just want to be left alone and don't care if you are collectivist or individualists. Kinda like that about them.
It's pretty simple, they just go about their lives. How exactly do you imagine collectivists live? People in a collectivist culture or society aren't attached to each other by the belly; as long as their culture/society is functioning they probably would want to be left alone like any regular person, collectivist or not.
Yeah in fact, from my experience you're more likely to be harassed walking down the street in the USA where the poor are forced to take to the street as hawkers than in Germany where you can still carry some dignity.
America has always been a country of self reliant individuals. What you're forgetting (and what todays "progressivists" want to erase from history) is that America was (and still is somewhat) a country with convictions, particularly because of the Christian religion which a majority of Americans in the 19th and 20th century identified with. Charities, church hospitals, philanthropic efforts by the wealthy, and a sense of taken care of your local community knitted our country together far better than government mandated collectivsm ever could have.
In the 20th century, the political implementation of collectivism involved the deliberate murder-- often through starvation-- of at least 100 million people.
This is a great question -- I think the jury is still out on this one. Someone will eventually figure out the right set of incentives, in the right quantities, targeted to the right groups that'll make it work, though.
Collectivism doesn't necessarily imply a collective, but I agree with your sentiment. All collectivism means in my view is that in a group of people each member gives priority to the survivial of the group and its other members more than themself.
> I don't think Americans will ever be convinced collectivism is superior until there's some organization or company created within the States that ends up being far superior to everything else.
I'm a huge fan of collectivism, but it doesn't scale. It has never scaled, and never will, unless some future technology allows for a true hive mind where humans are able to have deep, trusting relationships with orders of magnitude more people than our brains are able to with current technology.
At one point in my life, I lived in a communual eco-village that relied on collectivism. We had to kick people out ALL THE TIME for not pulling their weight. This was around 100 people.
The fact of the matter is that the technologies that are routinely developed in the individualistic USA are then adopted by the more collectivist countries, where they end up being much more available to the public than in the nation they were invented in.
Pharmaceuticals and medical technologies are an example of this.
Collectivism on a small scale is natural for humans. On a large scale, it ends up, almost always, having to be forced upon by men with guns.
We do, but what are we gonna do about it? We don't really have any ability to effect these kinds of changes as a common man. Our opinions have literally 0 effect on the legislative process. Our country is bought and paid for by corporate interests. Multiple studies have shown that our opinions count for nothing, and that lobbyists control legislation and policy.
We have now descended into the hyper-atomization of the individual as a series of micro-collectives, for whom we must fight among ourselves against others with different series of collectives. We now care not for whether our lives are good, merely that we see the other having a bad time.
Mourn for us, and learn from us - do not follow in our footsteps.
And? Like 2/5 of the people that voted for him regret it because he isn't doing what they thought he would. He campaigned for the common man, and is now fucking him over hardcore.
Trump's election provides a counterexample to the claim that the opinions of voters count for nothing, otherwise we'd be looking at Hillary Clinton's second term or first after Mitt Romney.
Many of the promises Trump made were absurd, irrational and couldn't reasonably be delivered on, and Trump himself was the easiest candidate to read in recent American political history. Voters being unwilling to exercise their power judiciously isn't the same as them having no real power to exercise.
This really, really depends on where you live. If you live in New York, you can get amazing food everywhere. We have things like paid family leave, free college, universal pre-k, etc that most Americans don't have. Also if you're working at a high pressure finance job, of course you will work long hours. But those are the exception. Working from 10 - 6 is pretty common for most people I know.
i wouldn't call new york an example of a "high quality of living." Subways that barely work? Terrifyingly chaotic traffic? A "me-first" attitude that is visible everywhere from the people complaining about citi-bikes to the advertisements literally EVERYWHERE.
Going from coast-to-coast is like walking into a time machine.
The clear explanation here is that different people value different things. I lived in NYC and didn't enjoy it for two out of the three reasons you mention (I didn't really detect the "me-first attitude," although it's certainly a common NYC stereotype). But there are clearly a lot of other redeeming qualities such as the food, cultural opportunities, and general sense (accurate or not) or being at the center of the world.
(And come on. The Subways don't "barely work." They work. I took the subway to work virtually every day with few problems. They're just dirty and don't keep an extremely precise schedule.)
Of course, one's experience will also vary by neighborhood, income level, etc.
Yes NY subways are in a state of disrepair at the moment, but that misses the forest for the trees. Public outcry is already starting to force bureaucrats to address this. I hope people remain outraged here.
But 99% of the time you can get from A->B in NY without much stress. You hardly ever need a car. You have almost literally the best of anything in the world within that hour-or-less subway ride.
You may not be able to afford all the best-of-everything, but the best X is there as an option if you decide you'd prefer X instead of rent (or paying medical bills). Almost always you can turn sweat into $ to buy X without anybody saying no. Nobody forces you to live in NY, and nobody forces you to buy X. But it's there if you want it.
(Of course you can argue that X is too expensive or that the sweat-to-$ ratio is wildly unbalanced but that doesn't change the facts.)
They will never be able to address the issues in New York. The whole place is polluted to hell -- the beaches are gross and dirty. I mean for fucks sake you have to ASK to not get a plastic bag (usually two). What year is it, 2002? The place literally smells like hot garbage and piss. The people have no respect for the land (ever go into prospect park on a summer weekend?). People working in business al
> You have almost literally the best of anything in the world within that hour-or-less subway ride.
Bullshit, You can take a 10 minute Bike/Light rail ride in portland and get to straight up farm-land or forest. In an hour you can get to the coast, desert, or mountains. In San Diego you can bike to the beach from anywhere in 10-20 minutes (that arent crowded and over trashed).
> Also if you're working at a high pressure finance job
If you're working that type of job, you're almost certainly getting very well-paid for your efforts; more than you would be paid in London or elsewhere
This seems oversimplified to me. I think it's fairer to say the graph of quality of life vs. income in Europe has a lower slope than America. Meaning, quality of life in America can be much higher for the wealthy, somewhat higher for upper middle income, lower for middle income, and much worse for low income.
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 (French and Germans) and I've asked them about what compelled them to come to the US. At times it does seem like Europe is a less stressful place to live. And the answer I get typically amounts to this;
"In France (or Germany or UK) security is much better than the US. But the opportunity in the US is much better."
I find it strange to mention Spain, and really all the PIIGS nations who not long ago were in financial dire straits and Greece has still not escaped.
The lack of a decent safety net in the US scares the crap out of me. The richest nation in the world should not have this poor a safety net. But to make Europe seem like some workers paradise is laughable.
Keep in mind everything I'm about to tell you refers to those in the corporate world, where many people have college educations, etc. This is not finding or losing a minimum wage job in retail. If you are of lower education or working a low wage job you might have less stress in a place like Europe. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, just like you should with the author of this article.
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.
I knew another French woman who was a consultant for a company that had a US office and spent a year here in Chicago. She did a lot of 'change management'. This refers to a few things, but one of those changes is 'layoffs'. And she walked me thru the whole process of when people lose their jobs in France and how different it is in the US.
In France if you are the victim of corporate downsizing you get a year of pay. You get job training. You get services to find a new job. And she told me how demoralized most of the French people were, how'd they'd feel sorry for themselves or be lazy. Some of them would not look for jobs at all.
Meanwhile when she had the experience in the US typically the layoff transition period some of these people only got 3 months of pay. However most of them had some hope, at least some of them had found another position before that period of time had run out.
Keep in mind this is mostly information based on France, the UK and Germany. I can't speak to other nations. I've heard nothing but good things from Norway and Sweden, and I've heard terrible stories in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Ireland, etc. In all honesty I wish we had some sort of federalized health care. The lack of security scares the crap out of me. If I were to die quickly my family would have some life insurance that would keep them afloat for a time. But I'm also a cancer survivor, it was only stage one. The US is filled with stories of people getting sick and hanging on for years and suffering and then losing their job. In that situation my family would probably be better off if we lived in the UK with the NHA. I just hate to empty drive about crossiants and better entertainment in Europe makes it a utopia.
These are excellent points, and I think they highlight a lot of the things that are "good" about how the American labour market works, and the deficiencies of the "social utopia" of Europe.
I think you can take it too far in either directions and I am relieved that you point out the deficiencies of this approach when it comes to healthcare.
I think France in particular often comes in for a lot of fire with regards to having these big slow expensive bureaucratic structures.
But then at the same time, along with the US, France is one of the top exporting economies in the world? They can't be doing too badly.
Have you been in Greece or Spain? Experienced quality of life is way above statistical or expected.
Proud moment in most of the Europe is being able to take relaxed coffee and think, which is possible in most countries. I am always puzzled when somebody proudly tries to explain to me how having two jobs is great.
"We don't dream. We are fine, we continue our lives, we know that we don't live in extreme poverty. But if you want to learn a second language, if you want to do something for yourself, improving your skills, you can't or you are very limited," Eva Pavlopoulo, a 29-year-old student, told CNBC in the tourist-friendly neighborhood of Plaka in central Athens.
Both you and your parent comment can be true. The economy may be doing terribly relative to other European countries, but if Greece values quality of life over economic development, then this wouldn't be terribly surprising.
> 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.
Started in the Netherlands FWIW, and the original Big Brother was a genuinely innovative, brave piece of television, like it or not. Garbage culture is ploughing the format into the ground with hundreds of almost-identical shows, and that was more of a US thing.
> I find it strange to mention Spain, and really all the PIIGS nations who not long ago were in financial dire straits and Greece has still not escaped.
It's vital to mention, because that can be the downside of the European approach: stagnant economies where people are comfortable but growth is low.
> The lack of a decent safety net in the US scares the crap out of me. The richest nation in the world should not have this poor a safety net. But to make Europe seem like some workers paradise is laughable.
Like you say, becoming a billionaire isn't something that seems possible in Europe; people who want to win big will prefer the US. But I do think Europe genuinely has it better for the average person.
> 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 find employment, drained all of our savings, etc. he wouldn't die, he just wouldn't get the absolute top of the line equipment (insulin pump / continuous glucose monitor / sensors / etc.) Medicaid would provide him insulin and needles. It's not ideal, but I don't expect everyone else to pay for my family's bad luck / misfortune.
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.
> Medical bankruptcy isn't really a thing in the rest of the world.
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.
But don't you think there could be a correlation between poor family health and an inability to get a job (and hence insurance)? Caring obligations, mental health, or any number of other reasons could be a hindrance.
I honestly don't think 'get a job and you'll be fine' is a particularly good way to help to someone with health problems. It's a big hole in the US safety net.
With COBRA, you can keep your health insurance (of course you have to pay for it) even if you quit/get-fired.
I don't know about you, but I've never quit my job just because a situation turned sour. There have been cases where I said "ok, it's time to look for a new job." But never "Take this job and shove it - I quit!"
I don't say this to demean these people but I would guess that a majority of that 16% are low-skill/minimum wage jobs. When you don't have skills that are in demand, employers less likely to offer benefits. Businesses are just like people, if they can get away with paying less, they will. I'm not saying it's right.
I'm hoping the Republicans manage to screw things up enough to lose Congress in 2018. If that happens, Trump will go all-in on single-payer/universal healthcare. He has no loyalty, and in the past (prior to running for office) he was pro-single-payer. So we'll see what happens.
This isn't about survival of the fittest, if you have no skill, then you are going to have trouble finding a job that has good benefits. No one is stopping you from acquiring a skill (outside of cases when you're sick...obviously.) You can become a plumber, carpenter, electrician, etc. and make a decent living.
and... we'll just give a big 'fuck you' to everyone else who gets sick at some point, and can't go back to work, or has skills that get passed by in the marketplace. hey - just go back to school for a few years, juggling some low wage jobs while you get more skills! so that you can win some approval from some employer where yay you can pay extra money to have some insurance so you can afford medicine to keep yourself alive. whew! That doesn't sound like "survival of the fittest" AT ALL. not sure that the OP was thinking about.
The word "benefits" just irks the hell out of me in the first place. Maybe the entire concept of "benefits" being synonymous "things that give you access to something that keeps you alive and healthy", and tying said stuff to "employment" (something very much at the whim of people and factors often outside your control - handicaps, geography, family obligations, etc) we could think about the issue a bit differently.
Also... society needs people to be doing low-end crappy work. Are they just deserving enough to find a job that has "good benefits"?
> and... we'll just give a big 'fuck you' to everyone else who gets sick at some point, and can't go back to work, or has skills that get passed by in the marketplace.
Capitalism doesn't care if you get sick. It only cares if you have time/skill to trade. That's the cold hard reality. In this country, capitalism trumps just about everything else. It has its advantages and disadvantages for sure. By the way, I'm not saying all of this is morally "right" - it's just the way it's always been, capitalism/business comes first in the USA.
I agree that society needs people to be doing low-end crappy work, but maybe if there were fewer low-skilled laborers in the job market, there would be more competition for their services (i.e. the employers would have to offer better benefits.)
I'm all for universal-healthcare and frankly my family would be a primary beneficiary.
As far as safety nets go, how far do we go? If I got sick, I wouldn't expect you (and everyone else collectively) to pay my mortgage, grocery bills, etc. for potentially years on end. Where do we draw the line? How do we prevent people from gaming the system? I know people in Europe who have been "sick" for years.
The drain on the systems in Europe from those who are “gaming the system” and who are long term sick pales into insignificance when you consider the overall savings due to the collective bargaining power of a nationalised healthcare system.
Your son having diabetes is not the same as say you getting an illness that prevents you from working. Or an illness for a child that requires more attention, maybe round the clock care.
And if you work for minimum wage AND you have a child with diabetes its a very different story. Most of the people hanging around HN are technology related, some of us have a tendency to be a little egocentric.
To compare your situation, having a child with a chronic but very manageable condition (diabetes) as opposed to say severe autism. I was just reading a story on NPR about a couple, where the husband is a programmer making 100K, and they have 2 autistic children. They don't have furniture in their house. They've declared bankruptcy. They have tons of medical bills.
credit card / student debt is a huge issue across the board in the US. Frankly you can live just about anywhere in the US on 100k if you have no debt. I read somewhere a while back that 67% of americans have less than $1000 in their checking account. That just blew my mind. But they're all walking around with iPhones and shiny new cars.
We've been fortunate to pay off our student loans and made the conscious decision when we first got married that if we didn't have the cash, we weren't going to borrow cash from our future selves to pay for it (with credit cards.) This by far has been the best decision we've ever made.
We have a reasonable amount of money in the bank (no matter the number it's never enough) and the only debt we owe is the mortgage on the house.
Student loans are a bigger issue for the up & coming generations. 17 year old american kids are not equipped to understand the implications of taking on $80,000+ in loans for a college education. We've put money away for the kids' college, but it won't be enough to cover their entire education unless they go to a public university. It's crazy to think that most parents don't steer their kids towards well-paying university majors. The worst case scenario happens far too often, for example: a kid majors in a generic degree like "communications" or "english" in exchange for $80,000 and their first job (if they're lucky to get one in their field!) pays them a pittance.
Well, consider that I am not what I would consider "rich" (this is not a complaint!) The number would have to be $2m+ for it to be "enough" in the event I couldn't provide for my family - enough to more or less guarantee that the kids are old enough to take care of themselves (15-20 years worth.) Given that it's highly unlikely that I will reach $2m+ in my lifetime, the number will never be enough ;)
Ah, I understand. I thought you were speaking in more general terms. You want security. Everyone does, and I think everyone should have it. The idea that some people aren't good enough or haven't worked hard enough to have a place to stay, food to eat, and medical treatment they need is - to me - inhumane. America is, as a nation, inhumane.
Once someone has reached financial security, money can no longer improve his/her happiness - except in short bursts. Understanding that, I can't imagine why anyone would ever need more than 50M (which is still way more than anyone would ever need). For me, it's embarrassing to live in a country where some have tens of billions while others scrape by - and some fail to do even that.
The article's major flaw is lumping all "Americans" together. Life expectancy varies wildly across race and income. America has always chosen to make the desires of the rich and powerful more important than the needs of the poor and powerless. We sometimes call this the American Dream. Equality in America isn't about all people having a decent life. It is more akin to Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some animals (the rich, the powerful) are more equal than others."
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.
> it is silly to claim that "Americans" are living poor lives
Good point. The funny thing though is that the median American leads a fairly drab life, but still fully subscribes to his own exploitation, if you will. Witness the election of a Republican president, house, and senate.
As John Steinbeck is reported to have said, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
However, Ronald Wright reported that he had said it, see the "Disputed" box at the end of the Wikiquote article.
EDIT to add: FWIW, it's an insightful aphorism independent of who said it.
The lack of safety net is exactly why the opportunities for profit in the US are greater. In the US you can consume people’s lives to build your fortune, while in Europe you have to take care of your employees.
The author's basic problem is he does not understand the United States is comprised of over 3,000 counties. The differences among them are vast, and most of the country is sparsely populated. To understand America, you'd have to spend time in places outside the big cities, like Appalachia, much like Great Britain is not just London.
Maybe this is because, as someone once put it, Americans don't see themselves as worse off. Rather, they see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"?
This is true of every nation, just the premise changes. In India it's how bad the corruption is. In many countries it's how their religious leaders are screwing them.
Because the money we put into Defense, Europe puts into the comunal programs that boost said quality-of-life indicators. Perks of being a superpower I guess. Love it or hate it, the argument could be made that without America choosing that path, Europe would not be able to enjoy the quality-of-life they have now.
I think part of your argument is true: Europe benefits from being in the American sphere of defence, but, I also think this is a red herring as the USA is more than rich enough to have both a strong military and look after its population.
The defense spending isn't necessarily the issue, it's the meteoric rise of allocation in the budget year after year to defense spending. We are overspending, and it only gets worse for the citizens.
I think this is a result of never truly leaving a wartime economy. We had WWII, then the Korean War, then the Cold War (with Vietnam in the middle) all on top of each other and justifying the expense for almost 50 years. I don't think America knows how to cut defense without losing military dominance. As te_chris said, Defense spending might be a red herring, but I would say it is almost certainly the foundation of the problem.
The other major budget problem is welfare/comunal programs. These have been hyperinflated over the last 20-30 years or so. I personally believe one of the reasons it works so much better in Europe is the fact that any given program is orders of magnitude smaller than American attempts. To improve quality-of-life to the level the article wants, I think America need to trim (trim, not cut) military spending and stop welfare spending entirely and let the states handle it (with parameters of course, but it would be a far less unwieldy beast for them handle).
Cutting military spending would also hurt the American economy massively. There are over two million soldiers in the military, with an unbelievable number of nonsoldiers building equipment that they use. If we scale back, all of that money injected into our economy would be lost.
> There is a myth of exceptionalism in America that prevents it from looking outward, and learning from the world
In my experience, this is not exclusive to America. It seems to be a feature of very large and diverse countries. I’m an immigrant from Brazil and I saw the exact same thing there. When a country is large and diverse enough, people seem to think that all that there is to be seen is in their own land, and nothing outside can be much different from that. I had friends that refused to accept that life in other nations was objectively better. They claimed it was just “different”, but that quality of life was the same everywhere. Evidently, they had never traveled abroad.
I wonder if religion, particularly evangelical Christianity, has anything to do with this?
America is deeply enthralled in it; in fact, atheists are considered "lowest of the low" in certain polls (like whether one would vote or elect such a person, for instance).
Brazil - correct me if I am wrong - has a similar enthrallment, but more of the "evangelical Catholicism" variety. It is (like many "south of the border" countries, if you will) is highly religious and Christianity is on display.
I tend to wonder how these similar trends play into the disparity, as Europe (as a whole) is known to not be as religious, and what religion there is, is relatively downplayed...?
Happy people tend to not choose demagogues as their leaders.
Please read the actual report with its casual analysis rather than look just at the numbers. Aspirations play a huge part here. perceptions of stability and social net too. (As opposed to actual quality thereof.) Input data for numbers is additionally flawed by taking averages, which is unfortunate.
As for suicides, take a peek at all cause mortality instead and you will find a less interesting though much more informative picture. (Homicide rate in the US for one.)
In America Europeans are easy to spot because of their clear healthy looking skin. My theory is their diet is better, but it's likely due to many factors that relate to a healthier higher quality of life.
Europe is still to some extent enjoying the fruit of capitalism, but probably not for too long. There is always a day when roman does not have free bread to hand out any more.
Why don't Europeans understand how little we care what they think? Their rights have been systematically eroded and their countries stolen right out from underneath them. That condescending, undeserved attitude of faux superiority means absolutely nothing to red-blooded Americans. They can keep their baguettes, I'll be just fine with my 30.06 and my F-250.
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.
This isn't the whole story, though. Part of the reasons US healthcare costs are so high is that the majority of all medical research is done in the US.
America needs to do a hell of a lot better on this front - universal healthcare should be a basic human right! - but it doesn't immediately solve the issue.
As a European having lived in the US in a fairly rich state on many measures, and coming into contact with quite some American culture, this article "feels" spot-on.
It seems to me that Europeans are simply much more practical. Where Americans fall into a sort of philosophical debate quickly, Europeans regard the philosophical view yet take practical measures. The healthcare system as a very apt example: "Socialistic state-sponsored healthcare" is what it is: state-sponsored healthcare in a socialistic setting. But it works for us, and as such we don't care too much.
In many online debates were Americans make a point, extremism is encouraged. Two opposing sides or one strong side is heavily argumented for. This causes a deep divide between anything to be discussed in US culture, I feel. In EU the attitude seems to be more: "yeah, these indeed are the extremes, but let's decide on a practical solution most can live with". In the US, usually an (extremist) side is picked.
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.
"Everything I consume in the States is of a vastly, abysmally lower quality. Every single thing. The food,"
Really? Everytime I go to europe, the meat tastes like crap in comparison to US-raised meat, it's tough as a shoe-sole and it's overpriced.
"So my quality of life — despite all my privileges..."
There you have it, this guy has homes in London AND New York. Ask the average EU citizen (I'm not talking about techies, I'm talking about the blue-collar workers) how good they have it.
I compare my upbringing in the States (we lived in France for a year when I was young and it just wasn't for me) and life is far easier on the blue-collar worker in the US if you could find a decent job.
An uncle of mine spent 4 years out of work (machinist) before he found a new job in France. My father worked in a factory in the US for 37 years. This is obviously too small a sample to be significant, but other family have had similar outcomes and difficulties. My mom (who still barely speaks english) wouldn't go back to live in France.
This is still the land of opportunity for those who are willing to work their butts off and take risks. The only thing I wish we had in the US is universal healthcare. It's coming, when the republicans manage to lose congress in 2018.
So yeah, if you're rich a rich hipster, Europe might be "better."
I'll keep my guns, my F150, and my 4,000 square foot (372 sq. meter) house, merci beaucoup.
I posted this comment but this does echo what I've heard from other European expats. Certain industrial nations in Europe have more security (health care, welfare) than the US, but the US has opportunity.
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.
> I can't say Im one the same page about availability of guns and all the gas guzzling vehicles
I work from home, so I consume far less gasoline than the neighbor across the street that has a Chevy Volt ;)
As for firearms, to each his own. I've lived in places in the US where they're very restrictive and now I live in a place where it's quite the opposite. I'd much rather have the choice, than have it made for me.
All I've ever heard from family in France/Italy is that it's basically impossible to get fired for incompetence.
The arrogance of this rich yuppie with homes in New York and London (my god, can you be any more of a stereotype?) comparing a densely populated continent to a mostly rural, sparsely populated nation is astounding.
I love Europe, and I collaborate with the devs out of our office in Prague all the time. I love visiting, and like the people. Half of our team would love to move here. Why?
They have kids, and they'd love to live in a place where the food (yes, even quality food) is half the price, the land is less than half the price, the culture isn't antagonistic to ambitious people, and where they can affordably run a business.
The US sucks if you're not fortunate enough to possess valuable skills. But it's pretty great for those of us who are fortunate in that sense. Not saying Europe isn't, but certain countries in the EU have policies that are outright cruel to small businesses, particularly NEW small businesses.
Having spent extensive time in NYC and London, I don't understand how someone with the money to eat out all the time (like someone with homes in both obviously would) can say that the US loses out on quality of food. Having been all over the world, without hesitation, I would say that New York City is the best city in the world for food. It doesn't have the most Michelin stars, but the everyday options for people eating out are phenomenal, and the diversity is unmatched. Nowhere else in the world can you go and get so many different types of food that are well prepared. You can't do it in London. You can't do it in Berlin. You can't do it in Tokyo. You can't do it in Hong Kong. You can't do it in Paris. Hell, food diversity in Houston is better than all of those other cities. Why? Because America is a lot more diverse than Europe in general. In absolution population, the US has more minorities than Europe on the whole, despite having half the population - the relative amount is double!
And that's also why I immediately am so skeptical on the claims about things like art, etc, as well. There's far fewer cultures having an input on them, and things like art are elevated by having a diversity of influences and influxes of ideas.
My understanding is that it's easier to get a culturally homogenous population to buy into economic collectivism, vs. a culturally diverse population. E.g. the migrant "problem" that the EU is dealing with--last I checked, most of Europe wasn't stumbling over themselves to provide social services to all of their recent arrivals...
Ameericans do realize how unhappy they are. There's an epidemic of opiate addiction.
That unhappiness is the result of many things: major changes in the job market leaving millions without opportunities, the collapse of hundreds of small towns and communities, the disintegration of the nuclear family, etc.
Ironically, materially, Americans are much better off than they were decades ago, but all that material prosperity has left people unsatisfied.
In my opinion the problem goes much deeper than this, as Augustine said:
> You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
But the inadequacy of consumerism is maybe more clear.
I think you refer to this article: The Opioid Epidemic Hits The European Union [1]. Note that the title of that article contradicts the contents though. There is a big difference between the current opioid epidemic in the US, and an 'increase in non-medical drug use for prescription painkillers'.. One of the researchers is even quoted to say: "We can learn much from the E.U. in terms of how to prescribe opioids in the context of a national healthcare system"
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 272 ms ] threadWhy do so many Americans object to universal health care yet complain about insurance premiums? Its something I've never understood as an outside observer.
Individual rights are what makes the West successful compared to the rest of the world.
We're talking about Western-style democratic socialism, as found in Sweden, Norway, Germany, England, etc. here. Terrifying totalitarian hellholes they're not.
I wonder if this is not an oxymoron. In my view, democracy means (a lot of) politics, while communism means no or very little politics (in a true sense of the word).
But when you discover that a system has way better objective outcomes, e.g. in the case of drug policy or healthcare policy, it’s a shame not to upgrade to a similar system.
Really, the US has a lot of good systems, but healthcare isn’t one of them.
Just scroll down.
The US has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios of the OECD. All of the countries I mentioned have lower debt than we do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_de...
I don't think something can be universally loved. There are many stories of long waiting times and people going overseas for private healthcare.
People like private healthcare because it aligns with America's love of freedom - which includes the freedom to fail.
Maybe a little strong on my part.
Asked "would you scrap the NHS?" to randoms on the street i bet you would get a very strong no vote.
I think it is more sustainable than other systems, especially the one practiced in the US.
Also, please note than in the US, public spending on health is already huge, and there’s a huge private spending as well - iirc about 20% of us GDP is spent on healthcare, which is double any other western country, and with worse results to boot. It is already unsustainable.
The UK has a lower debt-to-GDP ratio than the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_de...
Their debt ratio is predicted to slightly lower by 2022, while ours is expected to continue to increase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_future_gr...
American's have a very perverse idea of what 'freedom' is.
I’ve heard Canadians complain about the lack of private options awhile back, but I think even that is solved now.
And even we could reduce it by half, the only politically viable method of funding is a highly progressive tax.
People on hacker news would likely pay 20k a year and the average person would pay 2,500 or less.
It was just an example, but it's pretty clear that costs would be cut.
>We’d have to ration care and implement price controls. Who knows if that is even politically viable.
We already ration care, we just do it by how much money you have. Price controls? Pretty politically viable, just march some affected people up on stage. Hell you don't even need price controls, just make overseas drug importing legal. Right now we're a totally captive market, that's why they charge so much.
>And even we could reduce it by half, the only politically viable method of funding is a highly progressive tax.
Okay? Sounds fine to me.
>People on hacker news would likely pay 20k a year and the average person would pay 2,500 or less.
I mean that's how progressive taxes work and I don't have a problem with it, although your numbers are obviously pulled straight from your ass.
Can we not apply the same thinking here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_health_expenditure_p...
We spend about the same as other OECD countries in public healthcare funding, plus we spend a bunch more privately, for an overall healthcare spend that's the highest per-capita in the world, and outcomes that aren't as good.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/26/uk-public-ar...
> Department of Health (DH) figures show that the amount of its funding that has gone to “independent sector providers” more than doubled from £4.1bn in 2009-10, Labour’s last year in power, to £8.7bn in 2015-16.
> Slow-release privatisation has also seen the percentage of the DH budget finding its way into private hands rising from 4% in 2009-10 to 8% in the last financial year.
That "wrong direction" poll may well reflect concern over the slow privatization of the NHS described here.
Often Canadian health care is cited in America as an example of a crappy system because some Canadians will travel to the US for surgeries.
Most of it is unfounded, takes anecdotes, and paints broad strokes. As opposed to looking at it as a whole, and doesn't consider the underlying costs. It would be nice if we could have a pragmatic conversation about it.
The GDP portion that the US spends on public health care (Medicaid, medicare) is already comparable to the total portion other nations spend on universal healthcare. So insurance is just systemic robbery, its private yet mandatory spending. Costs are high as a result of paying for useless insurance infrastructure.
Finally Americans are vey independent, as in I'll make my own keep and provide for my family, I don't want to rely on the state.
The real question is: why don't Americans understand how much they are already paying for other people's healthcare? If you get treatment at a provider that receives DSP reimbursements, you are not only paying for medicare but paying again out of pocket to subsidize that hospital for providing financially unsustainable medicare treatments.
We're all waiting for California to prove that Universal Healthcare is possible at scale in the US. Smart money isn't holding their breath though- lawmakers know it would be career suicide to give them what they wish for.
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.
[1] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-whose-citizens...
Which I guess begs a follow-up question: why aren't they more outward-looking? This is the question the article asks halfway through, but it still ends without much of an answer.
As someone living in Ireland, where many things are of similar low quality (e.g. healthcare), we are outward-looking but only in one specific way: we look toward the US for a lot of things. I've often asked this question in a different way: why do we look to the US and not elsewhere (e.g. the UK, France, other EU states, where healthcare is actually ok). The two answers I've come up with are anglophone bias and anti-English sentiment arising out of our history, only one of which applies to the US, and yet they definitely don't look too us, to Canada, to other anglophone countries. So I suspect I'm wrong on this explanation in both cases...
It's likely a very multifaceted answer.
European cities are not all the same. Similarly for US cities.
Our lives are not random samples.
"Life is much better in Europe than in the US."
"How do you know?"
"Someone said so on the Internet."
You see? It doesn't transfer.
I think it makes more sense to tell stories of specific things that happened to you, and let people make their own generalizations.
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 Americans will ever be convinced collectivism is superior until there's some organization or company created within the States that ends up being far superior to everything else. Only then will people see the overwhelming advantage that comes with the "spread", which is the main advantage of collectivism (meaning the spread of burden and the spread of fortune).
The Musketeers said it best:
All for one and one for all.
A comprehensive socioeconomic fabric costs a lot to maintain. You have to have a base of taxpayers who are willing to pay it and who feel they get the value for their money.
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 different?
I'd argue, that collectivism is inherently superior for most albeit with a lower magnitude of quality for most and individualism is the inverse, with a higher magnitude of quality for some and is inherently superior for some.
However I'd also say that individualism is more resilient as it is inherently decentralized. You're right in that one cannot necessarily be better in all ways, but for the traits the article speaks to, I'd argue collectivism is superior.
>What’s the most egregious thing the boomers have done in your opinion?
>I'll give you something abstract and something concrete. On an abstract level, I think the worst thing they’ve done is destroy a sense of social solidarity, a sense of commitment to fellow citizens. That ethos is gone and it’s been replaced by a cult of individualism. It’s hard to overstate how damaging this is.
https://www.vox.com/2017/12/20/16772670/baby-boomers-millenn...
Funny thing about individualists: they just want to be left alone and don't care if you are collectivist or individualists. Kinda like that about them.
There's always going to be a few people who want to be independent - and you can only squish that at the point of a gun.
We used to know.
/United we stand, divided we fall.
At one point in my life, I lived in a communual eco-village that relied on collectivism. We had to kick people out ALL THE TIME for not pulling their weight. This was around 100 people.
The fact of the matter is that the technologies that are routinely developed in the individualistic USA are then adopted by the more collectivist countries, where they end up being much more available to the public than in the nation they were invented in.
Pharmaceuticals and medical technologies are an example of this.
Collectivism on a small scale is natural for humans. On a large scale, it ends up, almost always, having to be forced upon by men with guns.
We have now descended into the hyper-atomization of the individual as a series of micro-collectives, for whom we must fight among ourselves against others with different series of collectives. We now care not for whether our lives are good, merely that we see the other having a bad time.
Mourn for us, and learn from us - do not follow in our footsteps.
And yet Donald Trump was basically memed into office.
I think this only provides evidence for my point.
Many of the promises Trump made were absurd, irrational and couldn't reasonably be delivered on, and Trump himself was the easiest candidate to read in recent American political history. Voters being unwilling to exercise their power judiciously isn't the same as them having no real power to exercise.
Going from coast-to-coast is like walking into a time machine.
(And come on. The Subways don't "barely work." They work. I took the subway to work virtually every day with few problems. They're just dirty and don't keep an extremely precise schedule.)
Of course, one's experience will also vary by neighborhood, income level, etc.
But 99% of the time you can get from A->B in NY without much stress. You hardly ever need a car. You have almost literally the best of anything in the world within that hour-or-less subway ride.
You may not be able to afford all the best-of-everything, but the best X is there as an option if you decide you'd prefer X instead of rent (or paying medical bills). Almost always you can turn sweat into $ to buy X without anybody saying no. Nobody forces you to live in NY, and nobody forces you to buy X. But it's there if you want it.
(Of course you can argue that X is too expensive or that the sweat-to-$ ratio is wildly unbalanced but that doesn't change the facts.)
> You have almost literally the best of anything in the world within that hour-or-less subway ride.
Bullshit, You can take a 10 minute Bike/Light rail ride in portland and get to straight up farm-land or forest. In an hour you can get to the coast, desert, or mountains. In San Diego you can bike to the beach from anywhere in 10-20 minutes (that arent crowded and over trashed).
If you're working that type of job, you're almost certainly getting very well-paid for your efforts; more than you would be paid in London or elsewhere
For the record I've met quite a few Europeans (French and Germans) and I've asked them about what compelled them to come to the US. At times it does seem like Europe is a less stressful place to live. And the answer I get typically amounts to this;
"In France (or Germany or UK) security is much better than the US. But the opportunity in the US is much better."
I find it strange to mention Spain, and really all the PIIGS nations who not long ago were in financial dire straits and Greece has still not escaped.
The lack of a decent safety net in the US scares the crap out of me. The richest nation in the world should not have this poor a safety net. But to make Europe seem like some workers paradise is laughable.
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.
I knew another French woman who was a consultant for a company that had a US office and spent a year here in Chicago. She did a lot of 'change management'. This refers to a few things, but one of those changes is 'layoffs'. And she walked me thru the whole process of when people lose their jobs in France and how different it is in the US.
In France if you are the victim of corporate downsizing you get a year of pay. You get job training. You get services to find a new job. And she told me how demoralized most of the French people were, how'd they'd feel sorry for themselves or be lazy. Some of them would not look for jobs at all.
Meanwhile when she had the experience in the US typically the layoff transition period some of these people only got 3 months of pay. However most of them had some hope, at least some of them had found another position before that period of time had run out.
Keep in mind this is mostly information based on France, the UK and Germany. I can't speak to other nations. I've heard nothing but good things from Norway and Sweden, and I've heard terrible stories in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Ireland, etc. In all honesty I wish we had some sort of federalized health care. The lack of security scares the crap out of me. If I were to die quickly my family would have some life insurance that would keep them afloat for a time. But I'm also a cancer survivor, it was only stage one. The US is filled with stories of people getting sick and hanging on for years and suffering and then losing their job. In that situation my family would probably be better off if we lived in the UK with the NHA. I just hate to empty drive about crossiants and better entertainment in Europe makes it a utopia.
I think you can take it too far in either directions and I am relieved that you point out the deficiencies of this approach when it comes to healthcare.
I think France in particular often comes in for a lot of fire with regards to having these big slow expensive bureaucratic structures.
But then at the same time, along with the US, France is one of the top exporting economies in the world? They can't be doing too badly.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(franchise)#Histor...
Proud moment in most of the Europe is being able to take relaxed coffee and think, which is possible in most countries. I am always puzzled when somebody proudly tries to explain to me how having two jobs is great.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/after-nearly-a-decade-of-eco...
"We don't dream. We are fine, we continue our lives, we know that we don't live in extreme poverty. But if you want to learn a second language, if you want to do something for yourself, improving your skills, you can't or you are very limited," Eva Pavlopoulo, a 29-year-old student, told CNBC in the tourist-friendly neighborhood of Plaka in central Athens.
Is there a chance that mass media tries to push one specific narrative, which does not reflect actual state?
Started in the Netherlands FWIW, and the original Big Brother was a genuinely innovative, brave piece of television, like it or not. Garbage culture is ploughing the format into the ground with hundreds of almost-identical shows, and that was more of a US thing.
> I find it strange to mention Spain, and really all the PIIGS nations who not long ago were in financial dire straits and Greece has still not escaped.
It's vital to mention, because that can be the downside of the European approach: stagnant economies where people are comfortable but growth is low.
> The lack of a decent safety net in the US scares the crap out of me. The richest nation in the world should not have this poor a safety net. But to make Europe seem like some workers paradise is laughable.
Like you say, becoming a billionaire isn't something that seems possible in Europe; people who want to win big will prefer the US. But I do think Europe genuinely has it better for the average person.
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 find employment, drained all of our savings, etc. he wouldn't die, he just wouldn't get the absolute top of the line equipment (insulin pump / continuous glucose monitor / sensors / etc.) Medicaid would provide him insulin and needles. It's not ideal, but I don't expect everyone else to pay for my family's bad luck / misfortune.
> 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.
I honestly don't think 'get a job and you'll be fine' is a particularly good way to help to someone with health problems. It's a big hole in the US safety net.
It also forces you to stay in a job, even if it turns sour, until you've lined up an alternative.
I can't help but think that employers like it.
I don't know about you, but I've never quit my job just because a situation turned sour. There have been cases where I said "ok, it's time to look for a new job." But never "Take this job and shove it - I quit!"
From: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/study-fewer-employers-offe...
>Nationwide, 83.8 percent of workers in 2015 had jobs that offered insurance
In other words, 16.2% of workers have jobs that don't offer insurance. That's 3 in 20.
I'm hoping the Republicans manage to screw things up enough to lose Congress in 2018. If that happens, Trump will go all-in on single-payer/universal healthcare. He has no loyalty, and in the past (prior to running for office) he was pro-single-payer. So we'll see what happens.
And there is the difference. The US is about survival of the fittest.
This isn't about survival of the fittest, if you have no skill, then you are going to have trouble finding a job that has good benefits. No one is stopping you from acquiring a skill (outside of cases when you're sick...obviously.) You can become a plumber, carpenter, electrician, etc. and make a decent living.
The word "benefits" just irks the hell out of me in the first place. Maybe the entire concept of "benefits" being synonymous "things that give you access to something that keeps you alive and healthy", and tying said stuff to "employment" (something very much at the whim of people and factors often outside your control - handicaps, geography, family obligations, etc) we could think about the issue a bit differently.
Also... society needs people to be doing low-end crappy work. Are they just deserving enough to find a job that has "good benefits"?
Capitalism doesn't care if you get sick. It only cares if you have time/skill to trade. That's the cold hard reality. In this country, capitalism trumps just about everything else. It has its advantages and disadvantages for sure. By the way, I'm not saying all of this is morally "right" - it's just the way it's always been, capitalism/business comes first in the USA.
I agree that society needs people to be doing low-end crappy work, but maybe if there were fewer low-skilled laborers in the job market, there would be more competition for their services (i.e. the employers would have to offer better benefits.)
I'm all for universal-healthcare and frankly my family would be a primary beneficiary.
As far as safety nets go, how far do we go? If I got sick, I wouldn't expect you (and everyone else collectively) to pay my mortgage, grocery bills, etc. for potentially years on end. Where do we draw the line? How do we prevent people from gaming the system? I know people in Europe who have been "sick" for years.
And if you work for minimum wage AND you have a child with diabetes its a very different story. Most of the people hanging around HN are technology related, some of us have a tendency to be a little egocentric.
To compare your situation, having a child with a chronic but very manageable condition (diabetes) as opposed to say severe autism. I was just reading a story on NPR about a couple, where the husband is a programmer making 100K, and they have 2 autistic children. They don't have furniture in their house. They've declared bankruptcy. They have tons of medical bills.
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/03/567602293/what-living-on-100-...
We've been fortunate to pay off our student loans and made the conscious decision when we first got married that if we didn't have the cash, we weren't going to borrow cash from our future selves to pay for it (with credit cards.) This by far has been the best decision we've ever made.
We have a reasonable amount of money in the bank (no matter the number it's never enough) and the only debt we owe is the mortgage on the house.
Student loans are a bigger issue for the up & coming generations. 17 year old american kids are not equipped to understand the implications of taking on $80,000+ in loans for a college education. We've put money away for the kids' college, but it won't be enough to cover their entire education unless they go to a public university. It's crazy to think that most parents don't steer their kids towards well-paying university majors. The worst case scenario happens far too often, for example: a kid majors in a generic degree like "communications" or "english" in exchange for $80,000 and their first job (if they're lucky to get one in their field!) pays them a pittance.
This is an extremely unhealthy perspective.
Well, consider that I am not what I would consider "rich" (this is not a complaint!) The number would have to be $2m+ for it to be "enough" in the event I couldn't provide for my family - enough to more or less guarantee that the kids are old enough to take care of themselves (15-20 years worth.) Given that it's highly unlikely that I will reach $2m+ in my lifetime, the number will never be enough ;)
Once someone has reached financial security, money can no longer improve his/her happiness - except in short bursts. Understanding that, I can't imagine why anyone would ever need more than 50M (which is still way more than anyone would ever need). For me, it's embarrassing to live in a country where some have tens of billions while others scrape by - and some fail to do even that.
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.
Good point. The funny thing though is that the median American leads a fairly drab life, but still fully subscribes to his own exploitation, if you will. Witness the election of a Republican president, house, and senate.
As John Steinbeck is reported to have said, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/23ar71/tem...
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck
The cause it seems is propaganda.
The other major budget problem is welfare/comunal programs. These have been hyperinflated over the last 20-30 years or so. I personally believe one of the reasons it works so much better in Europe is the fact that any given program is orders of magnitude smaller than American attempts. To improve quality-of-life to the level the article wants, I think America need to trim (trim, not cut) military spending and stop welfare spending entirely and let the states handle it (with parameters of course, but it would be a far less unwieldy beast for them handle).
In my experience, this is not exclusive to America. It seems to be a feature of very large and diverse countries. I’m an immigrant from Brazil and I saw the exact same thing there. When a country is large and diverse enough, people seem to think that all that there is to be seen is in their own land, and nothing outside can be much different from that. I had friends that refused to accept that life in other nations was objectively better. They claimed it was just “different”, but that quality of life was the same everywhere. Evidently, they had never traveled abroad.
America is deeply enthralled in it; in fact, atheists are considered "lowest of the low" in certain polls (like whether one would vote or elect such a person, for instance).
Brazil - correct me if I am wrong - has a similar enthrallment, but more of the "evangelical Catholicism" variety. It is (like many "south of the border" countries, if you will) is highly religious and Christianity is on display.
I tend to wonder how these similar trends play into the disparity, as Europe (as a whole) is known to not be as religious, and what religion there is, is relatively downplayed...?
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
2: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/suiciderate.html
Maybe we shouldn’t use vacation anedoctes to try to find what the best political system is?
Please read the actual report with its casual analysis rather than look just at the numbers. Aspirations play a huge part here. perceptions of stability and social net too. (As opposed to actual quality thereof.) Input data for numbers is additionally flawed by taking averages, which is unfortunate.
As for suicides, take a peek at all cause mortality instead and you will find a less interesting though much more informative picture. (Homicide rate in the US for one.)
"Free" healthcare is cheaper to provide than non-free.
America needs to do a hell of a lot better on this front - universal healthcare should be a basic human right! - but it doesn't immediately solve the issue.
It seems to me that Europeans are simply much more practical. Where Americans fall into a sort of philosophical debate quickly, Europeans regard the philosophical view yet take practical measures. The healthcare system as a very apt example: "Socialistic state-sponsored healthcare" is what it is: state-sponsored healthcare in a socialistic setting. But it works for us, and as such we don't care too much.
In many online debates were Americans make a point, extremism is encouraged. Two opposing sides or one strong side is heavily argumented for. This causes a deep divide between anything to be discussed in US culture, I feel. In EU the attitude seems to be more: "yeah, these indeed are the extremes, but let's decide on a practical solution most can live with". In the US, usually an (extremist) side is picked.
"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.
"Everything I consume in the States is of a vastly, abysmally lower quality. Every single thing. The food,"
Really? Everytime I go to europe, the meat tastes like crap in comparison to US-raised meat, it's tough as a shoe-sole and it's overpriced.
"So my quality of life — despite all my privileges..."
There you have it, this guy has homes in London AND New York. Ask the average EU citizen (I'm not talking about techies, I'm talking about the blue-collar workers) how good they have it.
I compare my upbringing in the States (we lived in France for a year when I was young and it just wasn't for me) and life is far easier on the blue-collar worker in the US if you could find a decent job.
An uncle of mine spent 4 years out of work (machinist) before he found a new job in France. My father worked in a factory in the US for 37 years. This is obviously too small a sample to be significant, but other family have had similar outcomes and difficulties. My mom (who still barely speaks english) wouldn't go back to live in France.
This is still the land of opportunity for those who are willing to work their butts off and take risks. The only thing I wish we had in the US is universal healthcare. It's coming, when the republicans manage to lose congress in 2018.
So yeah, if you're rich a rich hipster, Europe might be "better."
I'll keep my guns, my F150, and my 4,000 square foot (372 sq. meter) house, merci beaucoup.
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.
I work from home, so I consume far less gasoline than the neighbor across the street that has a Chevy Volt ;)
As for firearms, to each his own. I've lived in places in the US where they're very restrictive and now I live in a place where it's quite the opposite. I'd much rather have the choice, than have it made for me.
All I've ever heard from family in France/Italy is that it's basically impossible to get fired for incompetence.
The arrogance of this rich yuppie with homes in New York and London (my god, can you be any more of a stereotype?) comparing a densely populated continent to a mostly rural, sparsely populated nation is astounding.
I love Europe, and I collaborate with the devs out of our office in Prague all the time. I love visiting, and like the people. Half of our team would love to move here. Why?
They have kids, and they'd love to live in a place where the food (yes, even quality food) is half the price, the land is less than half the price, the culture isn't antagonistic to ambitious people, and where they can affordably run a business.
The US sucks if you're not fortunate enough to possess valuable skills. But it's pretty great for those of us who are fortunate in that sense. Not saying Europe isn't, but certain countries in the EU have policies that are outright cruel to small businesses, particularly NEW small businesses.
And that's also why I immediately am so skeptical on the claims about things like art, etc, as well. There's far fewer cultures having an input on them, and things like art are elevated by having a diversity of influences and influxes of ideas.
That unhappiness is the result of many things: major changes in the job market leaving millions without opportunities, the collapse of hundreds of small towns and communities, the disintegration of the nuclear family, etc.
Ironically, materially, Americans are much better off than they were decades ago, but all that material prosperity has left people unsatisfied.
In my opinion the problem goes much deeper than this, as Augustine said:
> You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
But the inadequacy of consumerism is maybe more clear.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/cjarlotta/2016/08/09/high-rates...