4 ms·

> Not convinced. Serious illness can happen to anyone at any time, especially under the stress of running a business, and America has one of the weakest safety

> Not convinced. Serious illness can happen to anyone at any time, especially under the stress of running a business, and America has one of the weakest safety nets for a developed country. US is at the top of the rung amongst OECD health index. The middle class is not too badly positioned. For the poor, there is Medicare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ > The First Amendment is a great thing, but it can't maintain a culture of free speech on its own. The US's at-will firing (particularly combined with employer-dependent healthcare) means many Americans find it harder to express their views openly than people in other countries. US is on par with UK and most OECD nations with regards to civil rights and liberties: > The jurisdictions that took the top 10 places, in order, were New Zealand, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Estonia, and Germany and Sweden (tied in 9th place). Selected countries rank as follows: Japan (11), the United Kingdom and the United States (tied in 17th place), Taiwan (19), South Korea (26), Chile (30), France (33), South Africa (68), Argentina (70), Mexico (86), Brazil (88), Kenya (93), India (111), Russia (115), Turkey (119), China (129), Saudi Arabia (151), Egypt (157), Iran (158), Venezuela (160), and Syria (162). https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2020 https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2020

_kbh_ 5y ago
I feel like it’s hard to describe America as being at the “top rung” of health care with the stats linked. Those being 28/40 life expectancy 3/40 reported health 18/40 social inequality I can’t help but feel that that “reported health” is skewed with such a low life expectancy. For clarity within these rankings the lower the number the better.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Good points, also to keep in mind that US is massive. State to state differences are presumably wide.
  - _kbh_ 5y ago
    This probably leads to wider social and economic inequality, the richer states are more likely to have the better hospitals and better public health systems.
lmm 5y ago
> US is at the top of the rung amongst OECD health index. The middle class is not too badly positioned. For the poor, there is Medicare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ The breakdown on your link shows the US is scoring well because of high self-reported health, which seems very likely to be due to cultural factures. The objective part, life expectancy, is below the OECD average, and in line with the Czech Republic or Turkey. > US is on par with UK and most OECD nations with regards to civil rights and liberties: Cato is an American institution with its own biases. Just having a glance through their measurements, they consider female genital mutilation to be anti-freedom but male genital mutilation to be fine, and though this is supposedly a report on "negative rights" it considers countries that require people to call other people particular ways to be more free than those who aren't. They consider governmental ownership of industry to inherently reduce economic freedom, when often the opposite is true because of stronger fairness regulations on governments (e.g. privatized utility companies can deny service to individual more easily than governmental ones). And to return to my original point, despite talking about the importance of economic freedom and quoting Trotsky, their report doesn't even examine cases where people are excluded from employment through mechanisms other than law.

_kbh_ 5y ago

I feel like it’s hard to describe America as being at the “top rung” of health care with the stats linked. Those being 28/40 life expectancy 3/40 reported health 18/40 social inequality I can’t help but feel that that “reported health” is skewed with such a low life expectancy. For clarity within these rankings the lower the number the better.

systemvoltage 5y ago
Good points, also to keep in mind that US is massive. State to state differences are presumably wide.
- _kbh_ 5y ago
  This probably leads to wider social and economic inequality, the richer states are more likely to have the better hospitals and better public health systems.

lmm 5y ago

> US is at the top of the rung amongst OECD health index. The middle class is not too badly positioned. For the poor, there is Medicare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ The breakdown on your link shows the US is scoring well because of high self-reported health, which seems very likely to be due to cultural factures. The objective part, life expectancy, is below the OECD average, and in line with the Czech Republic or Turkey. > US is on par with UK and most OECD nations with regards to civil rights and liberties: Cato is an American institution with its own biases. Just having a glance through their measurements, they consider female genital mutilation to be anti-freedom but male genital mutilation to be fine, and though this is supposedly a report on "negative rights" it considers countries that require people to call other people particular ways to be more free than those who aren't. They consider governmental ownership of industry to inherently reduce economic freedom, when often the opposite is true because of stronger fairness regulations on governments (e.g. privatized utility companies can deny service to individual more easily than governmental ones). And to return to my original point, despite talking about the importance of economic freedom and quoting Trotsky, their report doesn't even examine cases where people are excluded from employment through mechanisms other than law.