4 ms·

One of the handful of objectively positive things to come out of the COVID19 pandemic is a significantly increased awareness amongst many citizens of the USA ju

by Jedd 3y ago

One of the handful of objectively positive things to come out of the COVID19 pandemic is a significantly increased awareness amongst many citizens of the USA just how uniquely awful their healthcare system (and to a lesser extent welfare system and award conditions) is/are. I'm sure the comparisons have been made for many years, but by mid-2020 it felt like almost everyone in the USA must have been exposed to some hard truths about how 'the rest of the west' handles these fairly fundamental services. As an Australian, and I suspect the Brits and others feel similarly, the pandemic also reminded us of what we stand to lose if we were to allow the eagerly nefarious agents to talk us out of (AU) Medicare or (UK) NHS, etc.

heavyset_go 3y ago
> I'm sure the comparisons have been made for many years, but by mid-2020 it felt like almost everyone in the USA must have been exposed to some hard truths about how 'the rest of the west' handles these fairly fundamental services. You'd hope, but that type of facts and rhetoric wasn't seized upon by the media or political parties. A good amount of people were never exposed to that information nor its consequences, let alone the consequences of our negligence towards health and social services. People were happy to get some checks and extended unemployment, and a lot of people were angry about those checks and extended unemployment. A good chunk of people wouldn't have given a shit about how well your country was doing if you were wearing masks.
- Jedd 3y ago
  Yeah, I suspect it's more nuanced than it seemed to me at the time. You say it wasn't seized upon by media etc, but perhaps it just wasn't by the media you (or I) was consuming? The USA media I consumed - Seth Meyer, John Oliver, some reddit / imgur - tends towards the more thoughtful / empathetic / liberal demographics, but unarguably is a bubble of sorts. I suspect, but also have no hard data, that the younger generation, generally more 'connected' and exposed to more of this type of information, was instrumental in extracting that orange chap, and I speculate much of that motivation came from this vector. Though how much of that was pandemic-highlighting of poor and unfair health services vs other factors .. well, who knows. Exit polls only get you so far, assuming these kinds of questions were ever asked.
  - throwaway66886 3y ago
    [flagged]
flagrant_taco 3y ago
During the pandemic response weren't the Australians imprisoning those who refused to get vaccinated or broke curfew laws and similar? Is the idea here that draconian measures were justified and the US should have implemented similar camps as well?
- smt88 3y ago
  You are conflating "healthcare system" and "emergency measures taken by public health agencies during a pandemic".
  - flagrant_taco 3y ago
    The gp was specifically talking about Australia's pandemic response, not sure what I conflated there
    - Jedd 3y ago
      I apologise for any ambiguity there - I was, as smt88 suggests, mainly focusing on the healthcare system comparisons between basically every other western / democratic mildly advanced society, and the USA. My greater point was that during COVID19 we had the unique situation of a health crisis that presented almost equally to everyone on the planet, so deltas in responses were very obvious, and depending where you were and what your politics were, very useful for finger-pointing (of the 'at least we're doing better than them' or 'we should do what they're doing' varieties). To your point - I don't think we were imprisoning people who declined to be vaccinated - not sure where you may have got that story from. We had the benefit of vaccines not being anywhere near so politicised, and our local Faux News outpost certainly wasn't promoting any anti-vaccine nonsense. Lockdown laws I think in most western democracies were similarly orchestrated and enforced, but obviously I only lived through one set. Whether they were perceived as draconian, or successful, probably depends on your sense of social concern / obligation. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-deaths-covid?country=USA~AUS https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-deaths-...
      - 3y ago
hellojesus 3y ago
The major difference is the US gov is bound by the Constitution, and the Constitution does not enumerate Healthcare as a power over which Congress can legislate or for which it can levy taxes. ACA/Obamacare is unconstitutional as it is. Not saying whether this is good/bad. Simply stating the facts.

by Jedd 3y ago

heavyset_go 3y ago

> I'm sure the comparisons have been made for many years, but by mid-2020 it felt like almost everyone in the USA must have been exposed to some hard truths about how 'the rest of the west' handles these fairly fundamental services. You'd hope, but that type of facts and rhetoric wasn't seized upon by the media or political parties. A good amount of people were never exposed to that information nor its consequences, let alone the consequences of our negligence towards health and social services. People were happy to get some checks and extended unemployment, and a lot of people were angry about those checks and extended unemployment. A good chunk of people wouldn't have given a shit about how well your country was doing if you were wearing masks.

Jedd 3y ago
Yeah, I suspect it's more nuanced than it seemed to me at the time. You say it wasn't seized upon by media etc, but perhaps it just wasn't by the media you (or I) was consuming? The USA media I consumed - Seth Meyer, John Oliver, some reddit / imgur - tends towards the more thoughtful / empathetic / liberal demographics, but unarguably is a bubble of sorts. I suspect, but also have no hard data, that the younger generation, generally more 'connected' and exposed to more of this type of information, was instrumental in extracting that orange chap, and I speculate much of that motivation came from this vector. Though how much of that was pandemic-highlighting of poor and unfair health services vs other factors .. well, who knows. Exit polls only get you so far, assuming these kinds of questions were ever asked.
- throwaway66886 3y ago
  [flagged]

flagrant_taco 3y ago

During the pandemic response weren't the Australians imprisoning those who refused to get vaccinated or broke curfew laws and similar? Is the idea here that draconian measures were justified and the US should have implemented similar camps as well?

smt88 3y ago
You are conflating "healthcare system" and "emergency measures taken by public health agencies during a pandemic".
- flagrant_taco 3y ago
  The gp was specifically talking about Australia's pandemic response, not sure what I conflated there
  - Jedd 3y ago
    I apologise for any ambiguity there - I was, as smt88 suggests, mainly focusing on the healthcare system comparisons between basically every other western / democratic mildly advanced society, and the USA. My greater point was that during COVID19 we had the unique situation of a health crisis that presented almost equally to everyone on the planet, so deltas in responses were very obvious, and depending where you were and what your politics were, very useful for finger-pointing (of the 'at least we're doing better than them' or 'we should do what they're doing' varieties). To your point - I don't think we were imprisoning people who declined to be vaccinated - not sure where you may have got that story from. We had the benefit of vaccines not being anywhere near so politicised, and our local Faux News outpost certainly wasn't promoting any anti-vaccine nonsense. Lockdown laws I think in most western democracies were similarly orchestrated and enforced, but obviously I only lived through one set. Whether they were perceived as draconian, or successful, probably depends on your sense of social concern / obligation. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-deaths-covid?country=USA~AUS https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-deaths-...
    - 3y ago

hellojesus 3y ago

The major difference is the US gov is bound by the Constitution, and the Constitution does not enumerate Healthcare as a power over which Congress can legislate or for which it can levy taxes. ACA/Obamacare is unconstitutional as it is. Not saying whether this is good/bad. Simply stating the facts.