4 ms·

Having moved to the US from Germany, not a Nordic country, but a country with a much tighter social net that works comparatively well, I agree that it probably

Having moved to the US from Germany, not a Nordic country, but a country with a much tighter social net that works comparatively well, I agree that it probably wouldn't work in the US. I think a social net works best if there is enough empathy in society to keep people happy with paying for those who need the net as well as keeping people from exploiting it too much. Of course there will always be someone unhappy with paying or someone exploiting he system, but it only works if that remains relatively rare. That is much easier if you have a relatively high empathy for each other which is easier in fairly homogenous populations. The US seems to have a very split society along all kinds of groups. There seems to be a strong fault line between large coastal cities and the middle of the country, racial divides, Republicans vs Democrats etc. These divides seem much larger to me than anything I know from Germany and I can only imagine that they are even smaller in the less populous, Nordic countries.

uola 10y ago
The Nordic countries aren't spontaneously homogeneous though. It's because we (social democracy mostly) worked hard to make it so. As the Nordic countries are becoming more like everywhere else we also see the rise of things like populist parties and racial divides.
jazzyk 10y ago
I am in the US and I would be happy to chip in to help pay for health expenses of a poor person, who has no family, etc. What I am NOT willing to do, however, is pay enormous overhead to the the insurance/healthcare/bill-processing complex which sucks out the blood out of this country. I bet most people in the US object not to some kind of a social contract to help the less fortunate, but to the completely broken system.
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  > I bet most people in the US object not to some kind of a social contract to help the less fortunate, but to the completely broken system. I feel like there is quite a few who are fundamentally against the idea.
  - nojvek 10y ago
    There'll always be a few against. What matters is more than 50% agree on it. Health insurance is a PITA here. Physio in Canada charged me $60/ session. Here it's $240 per session. Insurance pays about 100 but I still pay $140 out of my pocket. America has a crazy obsession of being rich that people will easily screw others to make a buck. It's a very stark difference to Australia and Canada.

uola 10y ago

The Nordic countries aren't spontaneously homogeneous though. It's because we (social democracy mostly) worked hard to make it so. As the Nordic countries are becoming more like everywhere else we also see the rise of things like populist parties and racial divides.

jazzyk 10y ago

I am in the US and I would be happy to chip in to help pay for health expenses of a poor person, who has no family, etc. What I am NOT willing to do, however, is pay enormous overhead to the the insurance/healthcare/bill-processing complex which sucks out the blood out of this country. I bet most people in the US object not to some kind of a social contract to help the less fortunate, but to the completely broken system.

adamnemecek 10y ago
> I bet most people in the US object not to some kind of a social contract to help the less fortunate, but to the completely broken system. I feel like there is quite a few who are fundamentally against the idea.
- nojvek 10y ago
  There'll always be a few against. What matters is more than 50% agree on it. Health insurance is a PITA here. Physio in Canada charged me $60/ session. Here it's $240 per session. Insurance pays about 100 but I still pay $140 out of my pocket. America has a crazy obsession of being rich that people will easily screw others to make a buck. It's a very stark difference to Australia and Canada.