Equity market says US Health Bill is killed

[Rolfe]

I've asked before, and others have asked, and there was even a thread started on it.

What personal freedoms do I lack, living in Britain (Scotland), that US citizens have, and especially, which of these are related to the fact that I benefit from healthcare on the NHS?

We haven't had a lucid answer yet, but I live in hope.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Faithkills, which planet are you actually on? I mean, if we were talking in the abstract, where nobody had tried any sort of universal healthcare system, then maybe these specious objections would have some substance. But on this planet, where every single developed western democracy bar one, plus a whole lot of other countries, have functioning universal healthcare systems which manifestly are not bankrupting nor enslaving anyone, I do wonder if you've ever taken a look around.

Rolfe.

 

[Random]

Except of course that's an absolute lie. Medical outcomes are superior in the US.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596

Which is of course why most medical tourism in the world is to the united states.

Actually it's kind of a mixed bag. We are ahead in some areas (cancer survival rates), behind in others (infant mortality, heart attacks).

What you want from health care is .. health care.. like when you need health care. If you get sick, and you want to live, there's no better place to be than the US.

I would adjust this to "If you get sick, you want to live, and you can pay for it there's no better place to be than the US." But a lot of people don't have the ability to pay, and the cost of healthcare is rising faster than wages, so its only going to get worse. That shiny new MRI machine doesn't help you if you can't afford the test.

This is the problem with the healthcare debate in the US. People who can afford healthcare see no problem since everthing is fine as far as they can tell. They show up with a problem, get some fancy tests, talk to two or three doctors, get a complicated surgical procedure, and some wonderful medications for their recovery and their health insurance company pays the bill.

For the people with less money they end up either with huge hospital bills, a health insurance plan that eats up a big chunk of their paycheck, or both.

The failure of US healthcare is not really a failure of the actual healthcare being administered, its how we pay for it. The system is collapsing from the bottom up, and the people in the middle and at the top just haven't noticed yet.

 

[ponderingturtle]

You forgot the third choice. Take responsibility for yourself so you can take care of yourself without bankrupting your family or being a burden on society.

So advocating death then.

 

[Faithkills]

I've asked before, and others have asked, and there was even a thread started on it.

What personal freedoms do I lack, living in Britain (Scotland), that US citizens have, and especially, which of these are related to the fact that I benefit from healthcare on the NHS?

We haven't had a lucid answer yet, but I live in hope.

Rolfe.

Tax revenue as percentage of GDP

United Kingdom 39.0
United States 28.2

You work 10.8% more of your work life for the government. (on average) Or given a 47year work life you are forced to work 5 more years of your life for the government than I am. Consider the extra year of life expectancy you have and you're still 4 years behind.

This of course disregards the $9k/yr average more that Americans make than Brits.

I respect your country's choices.

I always wonder why socialists can't abide more free nations?

Oh, the old "responsibility" canard.

Pardon me for wanting to pull my own weight and not expecting you to carry me. Clearly removing any burden of responsibility from people will increase their responsibility.

Tell me, do you have millions of dollars in savings, just in case you get cancer?

No, I bought insurance because I had little choice.

If we had real health care reform however, I wouldn't have to. Note before the government started meddling health care costs were par with other professional services.

Doctors really did use to make housecalls.

Virtually every other developed Western nation provides universal healthcare to their citizens at a lower per capita cost than we pay for Medicare and Medicaid.

Wrong. Dying waiting in a queue is not health care. They have universal coverage, not universal health care. That's the problem.

Also you totally neglect the fact that most medical tourism in the world is people coming to the U.S. This 17% of our GDP figure that gets bandied about conveniently neglects the fact that's not all American's spending money, some of it helps our trade deficit.

And of course we spend more per capita on health care. We spend more per capita on everything. We make more per capita. People like to live and be healthy.

I would adjust this to "If you get sick, you want to live, and you can pay for it there's no better place to be than the US." But a lot of people don't have the ability to pay, and the cost of healthcare is rising faster than wages, so its only going to get worse. That shiny new MRI machine doesn't help you if you can't afford the test.

I don't disagree. But there are two issues, the number of legal citizens that can't afford health insurance that want health insurance that aren't already eligible is less than 10 million by various studies.

http://www.coverageforall.org/pdf/BC-BS_Uninsured-America.pdf

Even at less than 5% of the populace, 10 million is still a lot, no question.

We need to fix it. I've talked about how.

I have no interest in letting anyone die needlessly. I have no interest is ruining what we have for the 95% to help the 5%. Let's help the 5%. We can start that by ending the subsidies for the 95% that don't need them and help the 5% that do.

The current legislation would just make things much worse. It's a sop for big pharma, big insurance, and ambulance chasers. It was a game of musical chairs but in the end none of the corporatist actors ended up without a chair except small business and the taxpayers.

The failure of US healthcare is not really a failure of the actual healthcare being administered, its how we pay for it.

Just so. This is a direct consequence of subsidies and protectionist regulation among other things. It can be fixed and easily, if we really want to.

So advocating death then.

My, intellectual standards have seriously plummeted since I popped in here last.

 

[Rolfe]

Tax revenue as percentage of GDP

United Kingdom 39.0
United States 28.2

You work 10.8% more of your work life for the government. (on average) Or given a 47year work life you are forced to work 5 more years of your life for the government than I am. Consider the extra year of life expectancy you have and you're still 4 years behind.

This of course disregards the $9k/yr average more that Americans make than Brits.

I respect your country's choices.

I always wonder why socialists can't abide more free nations?

You know, this reminds me of the old joke. "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" "Sure, honey!" "Would you sleep with me for 10 dollars?" "What kind of a girl do you think I am??!!" "We've already established that, we're only haggling about the price."

I completely fail to see what difference the percentage of GDP which is made up by tax revenues makes to whether someone is "not free". Aren't we just haggling about the price?

I also fail to see in what way the amount of money you have as an individual is related to whether you're "free" or not. You may be richer, and thus you may be free to buy more stuff, but that's one helluva shallow definition of freedom.

Come to think of it, in that case, I'm much more free than an awful lot of Americans, because I've got much more money than they have. If that's how you want to keep score.

I like my job. I like my life. I don't think of myself as "working for the government" for any particular part of it. I make quite enough money to buy more or less what I want, within reason. So forgive me if I don't find your remarkably mercenary viewpoint compelling. If I have an extra year of life, that's an extra year to enjoy, with the money I've earned. Your argument is pure sophistry.

Actually, I'm thinking of changing jobs. You know what I don't even have to think about when making up my mind? Healthcare. Because that continues whether I'm working or not, whether I'm earning a lot or a little. This is a real, tangible freedom, as opposed to the purely notional freedoms you think you have because you're all hung up on average earnings.

And another thing. I asked specifically for freedoms you have that are specifically related to not being burdened with universal healthcare. I note you avoided that part. Because universal heathcare has NOTHING to do with any extra tax we pay compared to the USA. I don't know what we're spending it on (bailing out banks, I suspect....), but it isn't healthcare. We spend less IN TAX to fund the entire NHS than you spend to fund Medicare and Medicaid. So you're already paying more tax to fund "socialised" medicine than I am. The only difference is, I get to access the service my taxes pay for, and you don't. Who's more free, again?

So much for that argument.

Pardon me for wanting to pull my own weight and not expecting you to carry me.

That's naive, rather than admirable. Almost all of us are just a skidding car or a blood clot away from more medical costs than we could possibly hope to cover with all the savings we could accumulate in our lives - even assuming we were prepared to starve the economy by avoiding all but the most essential expenditure all our lives.

I'm free not to worry whether I might tomorrow, or some day, find myself needing more medical treatment than I can pay for. I'm also free to spend my money on stuff I want to spend it on, rather than squirrel away every spare penny in fear of that catastrophic event. (This is quite good for the economy, too.)

Did you factor in the cost of medical insurance, above, when you were boasting about how rich you (collectively) are? Seems to me my disposable income might actually be a lot better than yours, even on a comparable salary....

Clearly removing any burden of responsibility from people will increase their responsibility.

So that's why Americans are the fittest, healthiest, least obese nation in the deveoped world!

Oh, wait....

No, I bought insurance because I had little choice.

Oh, but I thought you were so free? What happened to that? You see, I'm free to buy health insurance, or not buy it, as I choose.

Who is more free, again?

Of course you had to buy insurance. You know perfectly well you're only a skidding tyre or a blood clot away from crippling bills. So you engage in a scheme whereby you expect other people to carry you if that happens. You seem to think that's virtuous, but the scheme we have whereby other people will carry us if we wind up unlucky that way, is anathema.

Why would that be, again?

Wrong. Dying waiting in a queue is not health care. They have universal coverage, not universal health care. That's the problem.

Ah, there we go again. Death panels. Rationing. Waiting lists. You'd think nobody ever got any healthcare on the NHS, it's all a charade composed entirely of waiting lists. Wrong.

Don't believe everything you read in these right-wing papers. Like, Stephen Hawking is actually English, you know....

I doubt if there is a perfect system on the face of the globe. You'll always find someone that fell through the net. But you know what? Waiting lists are prioritised by clinical urgency. People on waiting lists, overwhelmingly, get treated. If you don't fancy waiting a few months for your hip repacement, then take out medical insurance, nobody's stopping you. (And remember, you're not paying any more tax than we are TO FUND HEALTHCARE, and our medical insurance is a lot cheaper than yours, so you can probably afford it.)

Again, that's the choice we have. Don't buy the insurance, and maybe wait a bit longer, but get treated just the same, or buy insurance and get treated a few weeks earlier. More choice, you know.

Also you totally neglect the fact that most medical tourism in the world is people coming to the U.S. This 17% of our GDP figure that gets bandied about conveniently neglects the fact that's not all American's spending money, some of it helps our trade deficit.

And of course we spend more per capita on health care. We spend more per capita on everything. We make more per capita. People like to live and be healthy.

India and eastern Europe have a lot of medical tourism too. I suppose their domestic healthcare for their citizens is great, too?

Nobody ever argued that the USA is a good place to go if you're as rich as Croesus and like to be treated like minor royalty when you're ill. This has nothing to do with the healthcare US citizens get.

I can see there are a lot of problems and bad compromises in the healthcare legislation currently being proposed. And I can see that fixing the US healthcare system isn't an easy task by any metric. But I seldom heard such complacent, poorly-thought-out garbage as you've been posting.

There are a good number of different ways of organising universal helathcare to be observed around the world. Not one of them is costing the country 16% of GDP, or leaving the low-income with unmeetable bills. Instead of boasting about how rich you are (if you forget to count the insurance premiums), and pretending that makes you free when you're quite evidently in shackles, how about looking at a few of these and figuring out which would suit the USA best?

Because if you think 95% of US citizens are well-served and happy with their healthcare provision/funding at the moment, you're either extremely young, or deaf. Possibly both.

Rolfe.

 

[theprestige]

Oh, the old "responsibility" canard. Tell me, do you have millions of dollars in savings, just in case you get cancer?

Better yet: Do you have a million dollars in savings, just in case I get cancer?

 

[WildCat]

Better yet: Do you have a million dollars in savings, just in case I get cancer?

But that's not how insurance works, is it? Lucky for you, collectively everyone else in your insurance pool does have the $1 million.

 

[ZirconBlue]

No, I bought insurance because I had little choice.

And, if it's anything like the insurance I get through my employer, there's a lifetime cap on the amount they will pay. Which is real easy to burn through if you get something serious like cancer. So, again, do you have a couple million dollars in savings, in case your insurance runs out?

And, is your insurance provided by your employer? If so, then you have to worry about becoming unemployed, especially after a diagnosis. 'Cause then, you'll not be covered for your pre-existing condition. So, you'd need a couple million just to cover that possibility, too. You know. Just to be "responsible".

If we had real health care reform however, I wouldn't have to. Note before the government started meddling health care costs were par with other professional services.

Doctors really did use to make housecalls.

The milk man used to bring milk, too. Back in the good old days. When all the women were strong, the men were good looking, and the all the children were above average.

Wrong. Dying waiting in a queue is not health care. They have universal coverage, not universal health care. That's the problem.

Seriously? You're at least a decade behind with your dogma. Hey, did you ever hear the one about the guy who wakes up in a tub full of ice. . . WITH HIS KIDNEYS MISSING?

Better yet: Do you have a million dollars in savings, just in case I get cancer?

No. But I'm sure me and a couple hundred million other folks could probably scrape something together. Don't worry about it. We got your back.

 

[Corsair 115]

But that's not how insurance works, is it? Lucky for you, collectively everyone else in your insurance pool does have the $1 million.

And the bigger the pool, the less any one individual has to pay. So what's the biggest pool possible? The population of the entire nation.

 

[Corsair 115]

And bear the high unemployment, and loss of personal freedom associated with socialism.

And yet, curiously, 'socialist' Canada has a national unemployment rate compared to the U.S. that is, according to the official figures for both nations, about one-and-a-half percentage points below the U.S. rate. And it has a government that had posted numerous years of budgetary surplusses, that only recently has gone into debt due to the recession, had a debt-to-GDP ratio far better than 'capitalistic' America.

In terms of freedom, the citizens of Canada were free from the fear of bank collapses, as the financial system here was and is stable and secure. No bank failures, no multi-billion dollar bailouts in order to prevent catastrophe. The citizenry here was just as free as Americans to own homes, and do so at a rate nearly identical to the U.S. but without the artificial American incentives of mortgage interest payments being tax deductible or the widespread use of subprime mortgages.

The U.S. is a fine nation, but it is not perfect. If it looks around the world at how other nations do things, perhaps, just perhaps, it may find ideas that are worth adopting. At least, if one puts aside the silly political/ideological rhetoric and simply focuses on what works best and what doesn't.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I've asked before, and others have asked, and there was even a thread started on it.

What personal freedoms do I lack, living in Britain (Scotland), that US citizens have, and especially, which of these are related to the fact that I benefit from healthcare on the NHS?

We haven't had a lucid answer yet, but I live in hope.

Rolfe.

I have said, you don't have the freedom to choose between bankruptcy and death. You don't even have to make that choice at all.

 

[ponderingturtle]

And, if it's anything like the insurance I get through my employer, there's a lifetime cap on the amount they will pay. Which is real easy to burn through if you get something serious like cancer. So, again, do you have a couple million dollars in savings, in case your insurance runs out?

And, is your insurance provided by your employer? If so, then you have to worry about becoming unemployed, especially after a diagnosis. 'Cause then, you'll not be covered for your pre-existing condition. So, you'd need a couple million just to cover that possibility, too. You know. Just to be "responsible".

BUt that is the natural cycle of life.

Get sick, become unable to work
Lose your job, have to go on cobra
Be unable to make cobra payments lose health care
Be unable to afford nessacary drugs stop taking them
Die from lack of treatment.

All their socialized medicine is just interupting the natural flow of life. The middle class need to know that they are an illness away from total financial ruin. Keeps them on their toes.

 

[Faithkills]

You know, this reminds me of the old joke. "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" "Sure, honey!" "Would you sleep with me for 10 dollars?" "What kind of a girl do you think I am??!!" "We've already established that, we're only haggling about the price."

Good old joke. Though a complete non-sequitur.

I completely fail to see what difference the percentage of GDP which is made up by tax revenues makes to whether someone is "not free". Aren't we just haggling about the price?

Yes, I believe you completely fail to see.

10% more of the work of subjects of your nation is taken by the government than mine. I wish the differential was higher.

I fail to see why you care so much about how much more free we are except shared misery.

I also fail to see in what way the amount of money you have as an individual is related to whether you're "free" or not.

Ah but isn't this the Rawlsian 'progressive' argument? How can you be free if you aren't 'effectively' free?

Regardless unsurprisingly this is not what I said. If you can't tell the difference between wealth and income and production then I won't be able to help you much.

I will try to make it even more simple for you. If I force you to work 100% of the time for me, you are a slave. What about 90%? 80%

I must suppose that you, or your electorate overall at least, must think 40% makes you 'not a slave'.

Personally I'm glad I am free to choose how to use 10% more of my life than you.

You may be richer, and thus you may be free to buy more stuff, but that's one helluva shallow definition of freedom.

Yet, again this is the very argument socialists use, and you use: How free are you if you aren't free to do some thing.. like free to take from others because you have the guns to do so.

Come to think of it, in that case, I'm much more free than an awful lot of Americans, because I've got much more money than they have. If that's how you want to keep score.

As already stated. Wealth isn't freedom. Ability to choose to gain wealth or not is freedom.

I like my job. I like my life. I don't think of myself as "working for the government" for any particular part of it.

Wonderful. I am happy for you. Granted your seeming vehemence that we share your happiness makes me suspect. It doesn't comfort people that have a tropism to liberty that people that have a tropism to collectivism seem so insistent that they share their bliss.

Do you suspect I have a 'false consciousness' about my tropism? You need to 'fix' me? That concerns me as I don't feel a need to 'fix' you.

I make quite enough money to buy more or less what I want, within reason. So forgive me if I don't find your remarkably mercenary viewpoint compelling. If I have an extra year of life, that's an extra year to enjoy, with the money I've earned. Your argument is pure sophistry.

You've demonstrated a profound inability to even comprehend my argument, as your consistent misrepresentation of what I have said shows, so your ability to recognize sophistry or otherwise is not demonstrated.

I will charitably assume you are confused and not intentionally building an army of straw men.

Actually, I'm thinking of changing jobs. You know what I don't even have to think about when making up my mind? Healthcare. Because that continues whether I'm working or not, whether I'm earning a lot or a little. This is a real, tangible freedom, as opposed to the purely notional freedoms you think you have because you're all hung up on average earnings.

Oh what a shallow definition of freedom you have Rolfe

You don't even make this hard. This is like stomping bunnies.

And another thing. I asked specifically for freedoms you have that are specifically related to not being burdened with universal healthcare. I note you avoided that part.

I did no such thing. I've addressed it several times. I'm free to decide how more of my life is used. With that freedom I am free to avail myself of the overall best health care in the world. Yes, it's expensive. Yes that should be addressed. Yes I hope it will. In the meantime I still know the score and do what I must to ensure I continue to have that availability. Yes that means I have to forego some other luxuries.

Because universal heathcare has NOTHING to do with any extra tax we pay compared to the USA.

Now you are just being silly. NHS is funded by leprechauns?

I don't know what we're spending it on (bailing out banks, I suspect....), but it isn't healthcare. We spend less IN TAX to fund the entire NHS than you spend to fund Medicare and Medicaid. So you're already paying more tax to fund "socialised" medicine than I am. The only difference is, I get to access the service my taxes pay for, and you don't. Who's more free, again?

Me.

I would not want to have a serious illness under NHS. Yes if you need stitches you can walk in and get them. Yes if you get cancer you're much more likely to die over there.

I'll pay for my stitches.

And I'll survive my cancer.

You've made your choice. Why do you hate that the US makes a different one so much?

I'm free not to worry whether I might tomorrow, or some day, find myself needing more medical treatment than I can pay for. I'm also free to spend my money on stuff I want to spend it on, rather than squirrel away every spare penny in fear of that catastrophic event. (This is quite good for the economy, too.)

If you think money that's taken from you to be putatively used on your health care is better spent than your own choice of how to use it that's fine. Most Americans are a little more empirical than that. We see the results of government 'management'.

Did you factor in the cost of medical insurance, above, when you were boasting about how rich you (collectively) are? Seems to me my disposable income might actually be a lot better than yours, even on a comparable salary....

Of course you know we're richer than you individually and in aggregate.

A cynic might wonder that the vehemence of socialists to expand their dominion into more free societies might be because of envy.

So that's why Americans are the fittest, healthiest, least obese nation in the deveoped world!

I run 15+ miles a week to stay fit. I go to a hospital if I get seriously ill. This is yet another non-sequitur.

Of course you had to buy insurance. You know perfectly well you're only a skidding tyre or a blood clot away from crippling bills. So you engage in a scheme whereby you expect other people to carry you if that happens. You seem to think that's virtuous, but the scheme we have whereby other people will carry us if we wind up unlucky that way, is anathema.

Who is carrying me? Do you mean the taxes I pay, which are reduced if I carry health insurance? Yes I do believe that reduction should be removed so we would have more competitive forces driving down prices. Yes I believe people that can afford health care should pay (me) so we can better subsidize people that really cannot afford.

Yes I'm selfish that way.

Ah, there we go again. Death panels.

Oh clever rhetoric. Reductio ad Palin. Yawn.

Rationing. Waiting lists. You'd think nobody ever got any healthcare on the NHS, it's all a charade composed entirely of waiting lists. Wrong.

I can point you at statistics but you know very well what the situation is for people seriously ill.

Don't believe everything you read in these right-wing papers. Like, Stephen Hawking is actually English, you know....

Brilliant man. His intuition about entropy causing black holes to evaporate was a joy. I also think he's right that no Higgs will be found.

I doubt if there is a perfect system on the face of the globe.

As our isn't perfect. But we know why it's not. It certainly won't be fixed by mandating more demand and leaving supply alone.

Again, that's the choice we have. Don't buy the insurance, and maybe wait a bit longer, but get treated just the same, or buy insurance and get treated a few weeks earlier. More choice, you know.

Your NHS is broke. There's nothing to do but ration care further.

Make yours work. Bring your standards of care up to ours and on a sustainable budget then I'll be happy to look at your model.

In the meantime I will simply observe that Social Security is broke. Medicare and Medicaid is broke. It's expensive but I'd rather actually have care than a promise of care and a bigger budget shortfall. We can't borrow from Asia forever.

India and eastern Europe have a lot of medical tourism too. I suppose their domestic healthcare for their citizens is great, too?

India is cheap. So is Costa Rica and others. That's because while they have some sort of safety nets their overall health care markets are more free.

Nobody ever argued that the USA is a good place to go if you're as rich as Croesus and like to be treated like minor royalty when you're ill. This has nothing to do with the healthcare US citizens get.

I'm not rich as Croesus and I have access to that same health care. It costs me thousands a year. I wish it was cheaper. But when the fecal matter hits the fan I'm glad it's there.

I can see there are a lot of problems and bad compromises in the healthcare legislation currently being proposed. And I can see that fixing the US healthcare system isn't an easy task by any metric. But I seldom heard such complacent, poorly-thought-out garbage as you've been posting.

Yeah, I know, supply and demand is a myth, as the U.K. example has shown so well.

There are a good number of different ways of organising universal helathcare to be observed around the world.

That's so interesting. We have universal health care Not one of them is costing the country 16% of GDP, or leaving the low-income with unmeetable bills.

And some of that 16% is you nice brits coming over to our medical system, because you'll die if you don't, to help our trade deficit. Thanks pal, we appreciate the business!

Instead of boasting about how rich you are (if you forget to count the insurance premiums), and pretending that makes you free when you're quite evidently in shackles, how about looking at a few of these and figuring out which would suit the USA best?

We know what works best. We know what will work worse.

Why don't you fix your own system and show us the example that works? Then when your outcomes for major illness approach our, and your government isn't going broke, we'll get right on board.

In the meantime American's like not to make our own government even more broke and American's like having the best health car in the world. We don't like having to pay for it, but we know the government has a rather poor track record of providing things for 'free'.

Because if you think 95% of US citizens are well-served and happy with their healthcare provision/funding at the moment, you're either extremely young, or deaf. Possibly both

That's the data. Feel free to refute.

Less than 5% actually. I'm sorry if this hurts your feelings.

 

[Beerina]

All their socialized medicine is just interupting the natural flow of life. The middle class need to know that they are an illness away from total financial ruin. Keeps them on their toes.

One could grant it is an issue, and address it. It's the complete takeover of everything that's the issue.

And your above observation presumes a useful treatment is available at any price. The choice isn't between expensive care and reasonable priced care. It's between expensive care for cutting-edge, new tech, and the same, but years later. I'll leave the math as to what this does to the average health as an exercise to the reader. It's not pretty, and is similar to compounded interest.

 

[Shalamar]

One could grant it is an issue, and address it. It's the complete takeover of everything that's the issue.

And your above observation presumes a useful treatment is available at any price. The choice isn't between expensive care and reasonable priced care. It's between expensive care for cutting-edge, new tech, and the same, but years later. I'll leave the math as to what this does to the average health as an exercise to the reader. It's not pretty, and is similar to compounded interest.

"We'll let them die now, so *I* might have better health care in the future."

 

[lomiller]

Tax revenue as percentage of GDP

United Kingdom 39.0
United States 28.2

Don’t forget that in the US you need to pay an additional ~7.5% of GDP for medical care. This is included in the UK number, but not in the number for the US.

 

[lomiller]

Why don't you fix your own system and show us the example that works? Then when your outcomes for major illness approach our, and your government isn't going broke, we'll get right on board.

The NHS routinely outperforms the US healthcare system for half the cost. There may be some people in the US with access to better care then what the average person in the UK gets, but it’s overwhelmingly likely that you are not one of them.

 

[Francesca R]

Tax revenue as percentage of GDP

United Kingdom 39.0
United States 28.2

You work 10.8% more of your work life for the government. (on average) Or given a 47year work life you are forced to work 5 more years of your life for the government than I am. Consider the extra year of life expectancy you have and you're still 4 years behind.

This of course disregards the $9k/yr average more that Americans make than Brits.

I respect your country's choices.

I always wonder why socialists can't abide more free nations?

Who are the socialists in this scenario?

The UK can only be considered "socialist" if it's some ultra-right-wing conservative fundy doing the considering. And on that note, two right-wing conservative policy think-tanks in the US do a measurement of economic freedom (which I assume you are alluding to with your tax statistics) and, funny of funnies, they both score the UK and US at the same level, give or take a percent.

Heritage Foundation: US = 78.0 (rank 8/179), UK = 76.5 (rank 11/179)
Cato Institute/EFW project: US = 8.06 (rank 6/141), UK = 7.89 (rank 9/141)

Then there are other freedom indicators:

Transparency International CPI: US = 7.5 (rank 19/180), UK = 7.7 (rank 17/180)
Freedom House index: US = 1,1 (top score) UK = 1,1 (top score)

And most of the other nations with universal health systems score up there too, some higher than the US. Denmark probably annoys the heck out of tax-welfare-loathing types by being as economically free as the US depite having massive tax rates.

So it appears you are no more free after all.

And surely you can't be oblivious to the common knowledge that total US health spending--what with all its pathologically warped incentives and partial cover--is a bundle higher than any other OECD country, all of which have universal systems except the US.

However, we respect your choices

 

[Magyar]

The U.S. is a fine nation, but it is not perfect. If it looks around the world at how other nations do things, perhaps, just perhaps, it may find ideas that are worth adopting. At least, if one puts aside the silly political/ideological rhetoric and simply focuses on what works best and what doesn't.

I think this sums up the part and parcel of what is wrong with republican (and some dem) mentality in the US. They are SO busy wrapped up in the flag, apple pie and jingoism that they can't FATHOM that someone else might actually have a good idea.
Or maybe it's just an insecurity thing. Somehow it's been beaten into the US consciousness that if we are not - or at least pretending not to be -the best, then surely we have failed.