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I believe it's less about ethnicity and more about culture. Policies work differently for e.g. the citizens of Tokio and those of New York City. If you have lar

I believe it's less about ethnicity and more about culture. Policies work differently for e.g. the citizens of Tokio and those of New York City. If you have largely homogeneous groups, you're having a much easier time to create policies than if you have very heterogeneous groups. The US is very culturally diverse, so "one size fits all" is likely much more difficult. > I would have thought that the experience of being mortal would suffice, but evidently not. If that's so, why do we see different approaches to social policy in different cultures? Surely, they are all mortal?

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
the question was not why are there different policies in different cultures, the question was why would universal health care not work because of diversity of the population. I suppose that universal health care will work for diverse populations because once that is introduced to the population the benefit should be clear, and that really the only thing that should be required for universal health care to work for diverse populations is that they be human - hence my reference to mortality. I believed this chain of thought would be clear, unfortunately I was mistaken.
- luckylion 6y ago
  "Everybody wants to live" is one side. I'm certain there's no issue there. "Everybody wants to pay for the system the same way" is another. I assure you, there are issues here. Do you see how it might be a thing that different cultures approach differently?
  - take_a_breath 6y ago
    Seems to work pretty well for Medicare.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    So it's not that delivery of the service would not scale, or that delivery of the service would somehow be impossible because of diversity in the population, but that a diverse population does not want to pay for the service? Is this perhaps some sort of code for people of one ethnicity do not want to pay for people of another ethnicity? That seems to argue that because a political strategy of fostering ethnic hatred worked to shut down social programs then social programs do not work because different ethnic groups hate each other. Which is sort of like me saying because I scored a goal in the game you can see how trying to keep me from scoring goals is not going to work - might as well go home now and leave me the trophy.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      In the U.S. if you are poor, you are eligible for free healthcare via Medicaid: https://www.medicaid.gov/ https://www.medicaid.gov/ I'm not sure where this tangent is going, but in U.S. many of us feel like total federal government control of healthcare would lead to bad outcomes in the long run, whether that's from deteriorating investment in new technology or through lack of local accountability or through rationing and extended wait times. Americans are nothing if not impatient. The wait times I hear of for even routine surgeries like tonsil removal in Israel and UK blow my mind, as an American. I would not expect to wait more than a week or two for something like that in the U.S. but have heard it can take a year or more to get an appointment in those countries.
take_a_breath 6y ago
== The US is very culturally diverse, so "one size fits all" is likely much more difficult.== Seems like something the “greatest” or “richest” country should be able to figure out. Are you suggesting the culture of rural Japan is the same one-size-fits-all as Tokyo? Or that Melbourne and inner-Australia are culturally the same?
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Seems like something the “greatest” or “richest” country should be able to figure out. As soon as we figure out how calling yourself some superlative and speaking of your exceptionalism makes things happen, it probably will, yes. > Are you suggesting the culture of rural Japan is the same one-size-fits-all as Tokyo? Much, much, much, much more so than that of San Francisco vs rural Montana, yes. Is this really controversial? The US culture is so fragmented that it matters what state you're in for plenty of things regarding taxes, laws, employment etc. That's unheard of in European countries.
  - johannes1234321 6y ago
    > The US culture is so fragmented that it matters what state you're in for plenty of things regarding taxes, laws, employment etc. That's unheard of in European countries. Then compare USA and EU. I would argue EU is even more diverse (former east block countries, and western etc. or areas like Guayana in Overseas France on South America) And they figured this out by putting different authority on different levels.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > Then compare USA and EU. There is no EU-wide health system of any kind. The EU is much less integrated as the US, it's really not close to being the "United States of Europe", even though many are pushing towards that direction. > And they figured this out by putting different authority on different levels. As have the US, apparently. Each state does what its inhabitants want to do and pay for. The argument is that because European countries have federal systems, so should the US. If you now compare the US to the EU, then there is no federal level health care system in the EU, only at what would be the state level when compared in that way.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

the question was not why are there different policies in different cultures, the question was why would universal health care not work because of diversity of the population. I suppose that universal health care will work for diverse populations because once that is introduced to the population the benefit should be clear, and that really the only thing that should be required for universal health care to work for diverse populations is that they be human - hence my reference to mortality. I believed this chain of thought would be clear, unfortunately I was mistaken.

luckylion 6y ago
"Everybody wants to live" is one side. I'm certain there's no issue there. "Everybody wants to pay for the system the same way" is another. I assure you, there are issues here. Do you see how it might be a thing that different cultures approach differently?
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  Seems to work pretty well for Medicare.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  So it's not that delivery of the service would not scale, or that delivery of the service would somehow be impossible because of diversity in the population, but that a diverse population does not want to pay for the service? Is this perhaps some sort of code for people of one ethnicity do not want to pay for people of another ethnicity? That seems to argue that because a political strategy of fostering ethnic hatred worked to shut down social programs then social programs do not work because different ethnic groups hate each other. Which is sort of like me saying because I scored a goal in the game you can see how trying to keep me from scoring goals is not going to work - might as well go home now and leave me the trophy.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    In the U.S. if you are poor, you are eligible for free healthcare via Medicaid: https://www.medicaid.gov/ https://www.medicaid.gov/ I'm not sure where this tangent is going, but in U.S. many of us feel like total federal government control of healthcare would lead to bad outcomes in the long run, whether that's from deteriorating investment in new technology or through lack of local accountability or through rationing and extended wait times. Americans are nothing if not impatient. The wait times I hear of for even routine surgeries like tonsil removal in Israel and UK blow my mind, as an American. I would not expect to wait more than a week or two for something like that in the U.S. but have heard it can take a year or more to get an appointment in those countries.

take_a_breath 6y ago

== The US is very culturally diverse, so "one size fits all" is likely much more difficult.== Seems like something the “greatest” or “richest” country should be able to figure out. Are you suggesting the culture of rural Japan is the same one-size-fits-all as Tokyo? Or that Melbourne and inner-Australia are culturally the same?

luckylion 6y ago
> Seems like something the “greatest” or “richest” country should be able to figure out. As soon as we figure out how calling yourself some superlative and speaking of your exceptionalism makes things happen, it probably will, yes. > Are you suggesting the culture of rural Japan is the same one-size-fits-all as Tokyo? Much, much, much, much more so than that of San Francisco vs rural Montana, yes. Is this really controversial? The US culture is so fragmented that it matters what state you're in for plenty of things regarding taxes, laws, employment etc. That's unheard of in European countries.
- johannes1234321 6y ago
  > The US culture is so fragmented that it matters what state you're in for plenty of things regarding taxes, laws, employment etc. That's unheard of in European countries. Then compare USA and EU. I would argue EU is even more diverse (former east block countries, and western etc. or areas like Guayana in Overseas France on South America) And they figured this out by putting different authority on different levels.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Then compare USA and EU. There is no EU-wide health system of any kind. The EU is much less integrated as the US, it's really not close to being the "United States of Europe", even though many are pushing towards that direction. > And they figured this out by putting different authority on different levels. As have the US, apparently. Each state does what its inhabitants want to do and pay for. The argument is that because European countries have federal systems, so should the US. If you now compare the US to the EU, then there is no federal level health care system in the EU, only at what would be the state level when compared in that way.