6 ms·

As a south american living in the EU, I grew up hearing people saying "ah, in the US..." and while probably they were thinking back to a time when the US wasn't

As a south american living in the EU, I grew up hearing people saying "ah, in the US..." and while probably they were thinking back to a time when the US wasn't as terrible as it is now, it's a bit irritating for me to hear that kind of stuff considering that I graduated in the top university of my country with a masters in engineering and had to pay nothing because university is free and for everyone. I've met so many american expats in Europe who basically fled their student debt by emigrating. And that's just one thing, the fact that healthcare isn't free, people avoid calling for ambulances because they cost money, and people are jailed because the prision system has become a very profitable business.

supergauntlet 7y ago
Every day I see headlines like this and I think "surely soon enough it will get bad enough that people will support universal healthcare" or really any "socialist" policy. Every day I am mistaken. If people actually did the research they'd see that these policies are just good common sense for them, but too many of our voters are lied to by the media they consume, so I worry things will never change.
- Frost1x 7y ago
  Assuming the trend continues, at some future time there will reach a tipping point. Historically, once a population becomes so oppressed by those in power that it starts pushing into fundamental needs (food, shelter, etc), the population finally revolts and it's usually not a pretty picture. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately in most other contexts), those revolution level standards of living are tremendously lower than what your average citizen has now even though we complain about home ownership and health care we still have places to live and emergency rooms. I'm not saying I'm willing to accept this level of modern indentured servitude, I'm saying most are. For awhile, we had a generally progressive labor movement in the states where average citizens demanded improvement and progress. It seems to have reached a sort of stagnant state of complacency at some point and began to decline with much of that culture and momentum dying off in the process (not being passed on to future generations). Now, people just shake their heads and accept things the way they are instead of fighting for improvement in their lives. How do you educate the general population and convince them to support movements to continue to increase US workers' standards of living? I don't know the answer to that question. I see an additional problem with the sort of bifurcation trend we're seeing in the middle class where people seem to be shifting to either upper middle or lower middle. The upper middle are typically more educated and so hammered in the rat race trying to salvage what remains for themselves, they can't find the time to support everyone else's rights. The lower middle typically aren't as educated: college is absurdly expensive and cultural + economic trends lead many of our most talented away from teaching (where many should be). This leaves the lower middle to be more susceptible to adopting media manipulation/ideology trends that aren't in their interests. I have a very bright and good friend who recently retired who told me if he was my age, he'd seriously consider migrating out of the country but he's retired and has a family. I hate to say it but sometimes I feel a tendency to agree with his evaluation and that's sad in one of the wealthiest countries in the world that has been a beacon of democracy and growth for many years.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  I am from the same country as the commenter: there is a free public system of healthcare. I'm not using it. There is private insurance as well: I'm not using it either. Im doing cash pay for visits and they cost 20U$S each. The universal care works against my usage in the case of Argentina, but I can still handle myself privately without hassles. The problem in the US is NOT that it lacks a public option.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    Sure, healthcare can be super cheap as long as you stay healthy. What are you going to do if you get cancer? What if you break your leg in 5 places and need months of rehab? Just because you aren't sick now doesn't mean that healthcare is irrelevant.
    - conanbatt 7y ago
      I don't have specific statistics but in argentina the public hospitals that deal with cancer are decaying institutions and the people that I know have cancer use private insurance. So didn't solve it either. Im contesting the idea that public healthcare is what 1) lowers cost 2) guarantees good care
rubber_duck 7y ago
In my experience "free" healthcare stops being a thing once you get above certain income level as the service provided by the public healthcare facilities is subpar (waiting lists huge, best specialists often work at private clinics, etc.) so you end up going private but you still end up paying a huge chunk of your income in tax. Eg. impressions of Germany is that it's a nice place and all but they insist on paperwork/formalisms too much (for example apartment rental process is ridiculous) and it doesn't seem to be very upwardly mobile (you get taxed a lot so it's hard to accumulate capital when starting from mid level income for eg.).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- onion2k 7y ago
  In my experience "free" healthcare stops being a thing once you get above certain income level as the service provided by the public healthcare facilities is subpar (waiting lists huge, best specialists often work at private clinics, etc.) so you end up going private but you still end up paying a huge chunk of your income in tax. That's not true here in the UK. People do use private healthcare but they're in the minority and it's usually for expediency rather than quality. Many very rich people still get treatment on the NHS. It's very, very good.
  - qwsxyh 7y ago
    In fact most private healthcare delegates back to the NHS anyway.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  " it doesn't seem to be very upwardly mobile (you get taxed a lot so it's hard to accumulate capital when starting from mid level income for eg.)." I don't think that's true. You can get free/cheap schooling and health care is always there for you. I would agree it's easier to move upward than in the US where it seems one of the big secrets for success is to have wealthy parents. Coming from Germany and now living in the US I am also not sure if the taxation in the US is that much lower when you add all taxes together. And if you or your partner has any serious health issue it's very likely that this will cost way more than any taxes you pay less.
conanbatt 7y ago
The Argentinian government has collected taxes from its 50% child-poverty rate to fund your education so you could leave the country. That is not an example of successful policy.
- wickerman 7y ago
  If the argentinian government wasn't riddled with corruption and people who literally stole most of public money then there wouldn't be a child poverty rate of 50% and engineers like myself wouldn't dream of emigrating. Nevermind that I was one of those poor children. But yes, the "policy" is the problem. Not the big heads stealing money.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    The true act of corruption is that the poor pay for the rich. 4% of the national budget goes to public universities, and IVA is half the taxes levied by the federal government. There are no doubts of who is the giving and who is the receiving in this case. IVA is collected 60% on the bottom 50% of the population meaning its slightly regressive. The first thing you can do to help the poor is to stop giving money to the rich: you can lower IVA by 1% if public universities were self funded.
jandrese 7y ago
Healthcare in the US used to be a lot simpler and cheaper. But costs continue to rise faster than the rate of inflation for decade after decade and the price started becoming an issue so people had to start complicating and reducing the quality their plans to save money, but those were short term fixes because the costs continue to rise faster than inflation and now we're stuck with plans that are complex and have limited offering and are still unaffordable. Worse, all of the complexity has its own costs which are now just compounding the problem. At this point any sane person should be saying that our private market approach to healthcare is an experiment that unfortunately failed, but the gravy train is too big and too fast to stop quickly. Nobody in Washington or even the state legislatures can get traction on a replacement without drawing the ire of extremely well funded political interests.

supergauntlet 7y ago

Every day I see headlines like this and I think "surely soon enough it will get bad enough that people will support universal healthcare" or really any "socialist" policy. Every day I am mistaken. If people actually did the research they'd see that these policies are just good common sense for them, but too many of our voters are lied to by the media they consume, so I worry things will never change.

Frost1x 7y ago
Assuming the trend continues, at some future time there will reach a tipping point. Historically, once a population becomes so oppressed by those in power that it starts pushing into fundamental needs (food, shelter, etc), the population finally revolts and it's usually not a pretty picture. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately in most other contexts), those revolution level standards of living are tremendously lower than what your average citizen has now even though we complain about home ownership and health care we still have places to live and emergency rooms. I'm not saying I'm willing to accept this level of modern indentured servitude, I'm saying most are. For awhile, we had a generally progressive labor movement in the states where average citizens demanded improvement and progress. It seems to have reached a sort of stagnant state of complacency at some point and began to decline with much of that culture and momentum dying off in the process (not being passed on to future generations). Now, people just shake their heads and accept things the way they are instead of fighting for improvement in their lives. How do you educate the general population and convince them to support movements to continue to increase US workers' standards of living? I don't know the answer to that question. I see an additional problem with the sort of bifurcation trend we're seeing in the middle class where people seem to be shifting to either upper middle or lower middle. The upper middle are typically more educated and so hammered in the rat race trying to salvage what remains for themselves, they can't find the time to support everyone else's rights. The lower middle typically aren't as educated: college is absurdly expensive and cultural + economic trends lead many of our most talented away from teaching (where many should be). This leaves the lower middle to be more susceptible to adopting media manipulation/ideology trends that aren't in their interests. I have a very bright and good friend who recently retired who told me if he was my age, he'd seriously consider migrating out of the country but he's retired and has a family. I hate to say it but sometimes I feel a tendency to agree with his evaluation and that's sad in one of the wealthiest countries in the world that has been a beacon of democracy and growth for many years.
conanbatt 7y ago
I am from the same country as the commenter: there is a free public system of healthcare. I'm not using it. There is private insurance as well: I'm not using it either. Im doing cash pay for visits and they cost 20U$S each. The universal care works against my usage in the case of Argentina, but I can still handle myself privately without hassles. The problem in the US is NOT that it lacks a public option.
- jandrese 7y ago
  Sure, healthcare can be super cheap as long as you stay healthy. What are you going to do if you get cancer? What if you break your leg in 5 places and need months of rehab? Just because you aren't sick now doesn't mean that healthcare is irrelevant.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    I don't have specific statistics but in argentina the public hospitals that deal with cancer are decaying institutions and the people that I know have cancer use private insurance. So didn't solve it either. Im contesting the idea that public healthcare is what 1) lowers cost 2) guarantees good care

rubber_duck 7y ago

In my experience "free" healthcare stops being a thing once you get above certain income level as the service provided by the public healthcare facilities is subpar (waiting lists huge, best specialists often work at private clinics, etc.) so you end up going private but you still end up paying a huge chunk of your income in tax. Eg. impressions of Germany is that it's a nice place and all but they insist on paperwork/formalisms too much (for example apartment rental process is ridiculous) and it doesn't seem to be very upwardly mobile (you get taxed a lot so it's hard to accumulate capital when starting from mid level income for eg.).

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
onion2k 7y ago
In my experience "free" healthcare stops being a thing once you get above certain income level as the service provided by the public healthcare facilities is subpar (waiting lists huge, best specialists often work at private clinics, etc.) so you end up going private but you still end up paying a huge chunk of your income in tax. That's not true here in the UK. People do use private healthcare but they're in the minority and it's usually for expediency rather than quality. Many very rich people still get treatment on the NHS. It's very, very good.
- qwsxyh 7y ago
  In fact most private healthcare delegates back to the NHS anyway.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
" it doesn't seem to be very upwardly mobile (you get taxed a lot so it's hard to accumulate capital when starting from mid level income for eg.)." I don't think that's true. You can get free/cheap schooling and health care is always there for you. I would agree it's easier to move upward than in the US where it seems one of the big secrets for success is to have wealthy parents. Coming from Germany and now living in the US I am also not sure if the taxation in the US is that much lower when you add all taxes together. And if you or your partner has any serious health issue it's very likely that this will cost way more than any taxes you pay less.

conanbatt 7y ago

The Argentinian government has collected taxes from its 50% child-poverty rate to fund your education so you could leave the country. That is not an example of successful policy.

wickerman 7y ago
If the argentinian government wasn't riddled with corruption and people who literally stole most of public money then there wouldn't be a child poverty rate of 50% and engineers like myself wouldn't dream of emigrating. Nevermind that I was one of those poor children. But yes, the "policy" is the problem. Not the big heads stealing money.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  The true act of corruption is that the poor pay for the rich. 4% of the national budget goes to public universities, and IVA is half the taxes levied by the federal government. There are no doubts of who is the giving and who is the receiving in this case. IVA is collected 60% on the bottom 50% of the population meaning its slightly regressive. The first thing you can do to help the poor is to stop giving money to the rich: you can lower IVA by 1% if public universities were self funded.

jandrese 7y ago

Healthcare in the US used to be a lot simpler and cheaper. But costs continue to rise faster than the rate of inflation for decade after decade and the price started becoming an issue so people had to start complicating and reducing the quality their plans to save money, but those were short term fixes because the costs continue to rise faster than inflation and now we're stuck with plans that are complex and have limited offering and are still unaffordable. Worse, all of the complexity has its own costs which are now just compounding the problem. At this point any sane person should be saying that our private market approach to healthcare is an experiment that unfortunately failed, but the gravy train is too big and too fast to stop quickly. Nobody in Washington or even the state legislatures can get traction on a replacement without drawing the ire of extremely well funded political interests.