Didn’t polls show Hillary beats Trump and Sanders would of had an even bigger victory over trump in a GE?
I think the attacks and criticisms are hurting trump amongst the general voting populace, just not amongst republican voters.
Disparaging? I don’t care if I hurt your feelings.
P.S, If someone isn’t “looking for work,” like most of these entitled kids that support Bernie, they aren’t considered unemployed.
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As someone from a country where every political faction from far left, left, centre, right, far right support universal healthcare and a welfare state, can I ask you if you were being somewhat tongue and cheek or do you really think most Sanders supporters are just lazy entitled people looking for free shit? No one I know has dropped out of work and are just living it large on government checks. No one thinks that is awesome.
The U.S from April 2016 has a seasonal unemployment rate of 5.0 ) - (9.7%. The UK has one of 5.1%, Germany has one of 4.5%, Switzerland has one of 3.6%.
It seems like nations with welfare, universal healthcare etc have very small percentages more of unemployed people, the same or lower unemployment rates.
Welfare is a good safety net but 99% of people would rather have a job than survive on the equivalent of $50 a week or so. It isn’t like people are living the high life of a lazy fat cat on benefits and it doesn’t seem to encourage sponging as the rates of unemployment seem to show.
Some people in the US have a different attitude. To sum it up it is “If its free, give me three!”
Doesn’t matter if it isn’t a good life, as long as you don’t have to work for it.
Isn’t Bernie Sanders arguing for universal healthcare and a welfare state? That has been achieved by almost every single western nation. Why is it nonsensical in the U.S context but not in the rest of the free world?
In Ohio Sanders won 66% of independents. He is more popular than both Trump and Hillary amongst independents in many polls too right? How is he going to struggle with independents?
We have people like that too, but they are a tiny minority. America gets shit on by foreigners but my experience of America was that there is a strong current of hard working and patriotic citizens.
I don’t see your average American ditching his job in the trades or in retail to live on barely enough to eat. Again some will, but that isn’t representative of the American population.
In the 50’s the top tax rate was 91% (effective tax rate paid in reality though was 70%) , corporation tax was 50% and there were enormous social programs for free education, housing etc.
Rather than becoming sponges the US population created a booming economy, built a strong middle class, expanded a budding small business force, massively improved literacy, dropped its unemployment rate and crime statistics.
He is, but we already have a welfare state.
We pay lower taxes than the rest of the OECD with healthcare. In fact, even considering the average cost of healthcare in a year we still pay less taxes. Why would I want to change?
This is all besides the fact that–if I allow my tax dollars to be used for something–I demand it to be run efficiently. The VA is anything but, Obamacare has been anything but…and more expensive than the previous private options.
Why in the everloving FUCK would I want a government to take over something and run it so ineptly? That would make it worse than paying!
We have had a different set of cultural values than other countries. Not only that, but we have a different history. That is why things that other countries have accepted may or may mot work here. Isomorphic imitation of some aspect of another country’s policies without the underlying cultural and historical values is a poor policy choice, almost universally. If I am not free to choose my own fate, i.e. screw up my life, then I don’t really have freedom do I? I am not really free. That is what many many people here hold, as do I.
By the way in answer to your first question–no I do not think all Sanders voters are lazy. I think they have not thought through the ramifications of the ideas they like emotionally. Or mathematically for that matter.
Good question man. US politics is a strange animal to those outside it.
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This is inaccurate for a variety of reasons though it is an understandable mistake coming from a person in another country and culture. It’s a bit beyond what I feel like typing on my phone right now late at night, but suffice to say it is not close to the truth. Social programs were minuscule then compared to today for one. But your tax information is also off (in effective tax terms, rather than nominal tax terms)
Also, please note that the economy BOTH nationally and globally 66 years ago was ENTIRELY different from what we have today. Comparing the two is like trying to compare your smartphone or laptop and the ENIAC.
Aragorn:
I thought that this was excellent…and deserved emphasis:
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While I can certainly agree with Aragorn that cultural differences can and should affect the state system in place to a degree, I generally find it is a slippery slope with this line of reasoning. An example of this is how the Saudi’s use these reasonings to justify why they needed slavery until 1962 or why they need to flog atheists for writing that religion should be separate from government.
However yes I agree with the premise in some instances, for example gun control. Culturally, far reaching gun control isn’t compatible with the mythology and culture of the U.S.
However I think universal healthcare could be. I am busy this morning but I appreciated @Aragorn response and will get back to him in detail as his perspective is very interesting to me, an outsider to American politics.
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One other thing that makes the U.S. so much more “different” from other Countries (as it relates to Healthcare…and I welcome any discussion or rebuttal):
It is the degree to which Medicine 1) is intricately intertwined with, and is a major driver of, our economy and GDP and 2) is part of the “psyche” of Americans (whether Liberal OR conservative) to rise to the level of almost a “right”/extremely high expectations for both it’s quality and delivery.
Americans simply wouldn’t tolerate the wait times nor some of the poor quality often delivered by many of these socialized systems (if one could imagine that some are even worse than our VA can be). Nor would they tolerate higher taxes for that poorer delivery. (In general).
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You raise some interesting points for sure, however I would say that Japan for example adopted a type of universal coverage, different from the European model and it seems to work well, it could be another option:
Payment for personal medical services is offered through a universal health care insurance system that provides relative equality of access, with fees set by a government committee. All residents of Japan are required by the law to have health insurance coverage.
As for wait times, the waiting times in my opinion are completely distorted by some people. For example I had a hernia I had to wait 3 months, it wasn’t an emergency. Last week my mothers best friend was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she has surgery in less than 2 weeks.
And if you don’t want to wait you can go private, which is still comparatively very cheap. If you compare how much people spend on health insurance
For 2012, the previous report, annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $15,745
If we look at the tax rate for regular people earning up to 32k a year, the tax rate is 20%, that is £6400 in the UK per year. That includes the following:
- Dental care for your children 16 and under.
- Universal healthcare.
- Access to a counsellor, psychiatrist.
- Access to jobseekers allowance if you become unemployed, help with bills, rent in case of unemployment.
- fitting of disabled friendly access/living for disabled family members.
Loads of other stuff included in that £6400 or 20% of what you make.
The tax rate goes up to 40% for those makes over 32k up to 150k.
It goes up to 45% for those over 150k a year.
I wonder if you share my hypothesis for why European culture not only supports but demands universal healthcare.
Europe systematically destroyed itself and rebuilt itself through two world wars, suffered massive struggles, lost millions of people in wars common people felt were wars by the elites of society for the elites of society.
They had sacrificed and given so much and the class divisions in Europe were far more defined than in the U.S. This gave rise to righteous anger and a united demand for universal healthcare in the wake of these horrors which left the common man poor and angry.
I remember my grandad telling me that if the government hadn’t granted socialised medicine and a welfare state after such a socialised effort in the name of patriotism, there would of been a revolution.
I think universal healthcare is very important to many Europeans because of the sacrifice people gave and the population as a whole expected their efforts to be matched by the state.
While America has a noble and notable history of warfare, there was no blitz, no destruction of U.S cities and rather the same thing happened but in a different way because of that difference, mainly a strong labour movement arose, because they were the ones sacrificing and struggling back home for the war effort.
I might be way off but I feel like there is some truth to it.
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Because each individual western state has their own unique universal healthcare system that covers their relatively small populations only. The same would not be true in the United States unless all 50 states had their own universal healthcare system.
I’ve said this in other threads, if the European Union creates a universal healthcare system that covers their 500 million or so population and it works out to be both sustainable and better than what we have then I will take the universal healthcare across the United States debate seriously. The fact of the matter is we have never seen a universal healthcare system anywhere near the size and scope of one that would be needed here.
That also ignores the constitutionality of such a system, but I’ve no desire to get into that.
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dharma:
In many ways, you are actually supporting my point.
You are talking about systems of Health Care that developed; over vastly different time frames; under very different circumstances; and over populations and countries not only less diverse (e.g. Japan and Sweden), but smaller overall than many of our States.
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(Sorry, Push…I hadn’t read your post before I had posted mine!)