There is a reason that the United States tends to dominate emerging industries. Germany, France, etc. certainly aren't the hotbed of cutting edge innovation in human achievement these days.

A huge income disparity simply means that the economy is less regulated by the government.

I don't see it as a problem if person A makes 1000X more than I do. It doesn't hurt me one bit.

And the discussion is about health insurance in the United States.  Most Americans have health insurance already. It works well for most people.  About 5% of US citizens population doesn't have health insurance, can't easily afford it and don't quality for medicaid.

The idea of turning our working system upside down for a few percent is madness.

That pretty much sums up how I feel about my tax dollars going to the federal government.

But what liberals now want is the next step - not "we're all in this together" but to basically saddle us with parasites in the most literal sense. People who are not paying in but are free riding.

I think the Far-Left with whom you always discuss these issues gave you the impression that this is what the main-stream Dem are saying. No one is proposing to saddle the Gov with any parasites. You ignored what i said about we must FIX the system to eliminate that. And i am sure you also know full well that there is nothing perfect in this worled. I am sure if YOU look closely in your organization you will find few of those parasites, i am also sure that you always try to clip them off and If you blink for a second they will multiply and any good-run business does that ALL the time. Gov is no exception. leeches and parasites will always be there, even in charaties. That doesnt mean we give up and discard the whole idea of giving honest working people a chance to afford meaningful health care.

Even if we let the whole thing to be handled by charities as you suggest, i can assure you there will be parasites .... there is no way to "purify" our world from them.

Dont always concentrate on this point of allowing cheats and leeches and drug-addicts to drain the system. NO ONE is against ridding the system of all of them. every single one of them. If you have a magical solution to do that, you will be the most famous and popular Democrat. Honest, and i am not joking. Just say how do we do that. keep in mind they also exist at charities and all other those private organization.

A huge income disparity simply means that the economy is less regulated by the government.

It can also mean that the economy is _very_ regulated by the government. There was a huge income disparity in the Soviet Union. Most had nothing, some had a lot, one guy had an entire country, an army, and nukes.

I am translate-quoting here from a story written by Hungarian-Israeli author Ephraim Kishon:

"[A communist's wife says to her husband:] You are no real communist like the others yet. You don't have the villa or the car or the driver."

Well if you're not a monumental cheapskate you can always use the private system and pay through your teeth/buy private insurance, get your medicare discount and hope it covers it. Do you think private health insurance in the US doesn't make decisions about who gets treatment and who doesn't?



Except in solar power, where Germany leads the world (with China probably a rapidly gaining second). But you're right, France is pretty rubbish.



There's nothing stopping you from reading the Budget. Sure there are 'black' programs, but they consume a tiny portion compared to the rest of it. So long as you have a reasonable knowledge of economics and can read a complex ledger you should be fine. Or you can rely on the analysis by economic specialists that come out in newspapers/online every once in a while.

Now admittedly you don't get to choose where that money goes, but that's the same with everything you buy - if you want to pay the government to provide you police and road services, you pay what they ask and in return get a few things you might not want. But that's the package deal and, unless you want to move, they're the only game in town. If you don't want to pay tax at all move to the Cayman Islands. You're rich enough to live pretty well there.

Some comedian a few years back made a pretty insightful comment about this. I don't remember his exact words, but the basic thrust was "I used to not give to bums because they would just spend it on booze and drugs. But when I think about it that's exactly what I'm going to spend it on."

this works for those of you who drink.

I will echo MM's comments.  Great article and congrats on the feature.

I read most of the comments, and skimmed the rest, and did not see the point that I would like to make.  I wish it was mine, but no, some other thought of this and I merely read it.

To paraphrase it:  The societies we are being compared to all have one thing in common that we lack.  They are based on a monarchy that was supposed to provide for their citizens (in ye olden times, their defense - more recently defense against disease).  America was born of rebellion and the desire to go on our own.  Of all the British empire, we are unique in that no one "gave" us our freedom, we took it.

While the same can be said for some of the colonies of other European powers of the past, the one thing they lack that we have had - is the feeling/understanding/desire/ (insert term of choice) that ANYONE can be WHOMEVER they want.  regardless of birth right.

That attitude, although greatly diminished today, still pervades a lot of American Society.  America is not heartless - as is demonstrated by our charity and willingness to help other countries that have no connection to us other than they are people too.  But we are fiercely independent and (most, definitely not all) of us want to do it on our own.  And so we do.  And through charity, not government, we try to care for those who stumble and fail.

Welfare, and more recently Universal Health care, is the big guy on the block (in this case government), trying to tell us we no longer can, or will be allowed to take care of ourselves.  And that gets our hackles up.

Medicaid is not perfect (in my opinion and others) for a very good reason.  It is not charity, it is subservience.  And like all other such programs, we cannot abide that since the next "victims" of such subservience will be us (the criminal aspects of the 2 Universal health care proposals now being pushed by some running for president).

To a foreigner, outside, looking in, it may seem that we are barbaric.  But that is due to their lack of understanding that America is not a descendant of a Monarchy, but the first, and best example of a democracy (or representative republic to be more exact), where we do care for our less fortunate.  But WE do, not the government.  And we hate it when the government tries to tell us how to live our life.

If America was so bad, we would not be world leaders.  Perhaps Europeans see us as being great IN SPITE of that.  We see us being world leaders BECAUSE of it.  It being our Independence.

and yes, you can find a google of exceptions now.  And that is why I said "diminished" today.  It is still around, but some (like Kerry in 04), think we should be more European.  And the rest of us are trying hard to prevent us from being just that.