My experience with ObamaCare thus far.....

[catherine]

They score higher than the U.S. on happiness and life satisfaction surveys?

http://unsdsn.org/happiness/


Or you could ask people in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, and just about every other developed country if they would like to drop universal care and change to the U.S. model of the highest health care costs in the world, 37th ranked health care system by WHO and 28 million people uninsured.

Yes, try to get to a developed country that has not recognized the value of universal health care and you might wind up like the subject of this New Yorker piece.

[try2bfrugal]

Yes, try to get to a developed country that has not recognized the value of universal health care and you might wind up like the subject of this New Yorker piece.

Too funny. Thanks for posting.

[peggy]

I wish we could just cut all the carp and have a universal, single payer system.

+1

[Yossarian]

They score higher than the U.S. on happiness and life satisfaction surveys?

The Human Development Index has the US as #3 in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...elopment_Index

Gallup says the tops in happiness are Panama, Paraguay and El Salvador: http://www.gallup.com/poll/159254/la...e-world.aspx#2


So I don't know what you really get from all that.

[peggy]

The Human Development Index has the US as #3 in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...elopment_Index

Gallup says the tops in happiness are Panama, Paraguay and El Salvador: http://www.gallup.com/poll/159254/la...e-world.aspx#2


So I don't know what you really get from all that.

Actually, the Gallup poll measured positive attitude. That's different from happiness.

[try2bfrugal]

The Human Development Index has the US as #3 in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...elopment_Index

Gallup says the tops in happiness are Panama, Paraguay and El Salvador: http://www.gallup.com/poll/159254/la...e-world.aspx#2


So I don't know what you really get from all that.

The Better Life Index has 13 countries ahead of the U.S. in life satisfaction -
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/t...-satisfaction/

The World Happiness Report 2013 didn't rank the U.S. in the top ten overall -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3894041.html

Overall the U.S. was ranked 17th -
http://cir.ca/news/world-happiness-report-2013

The countries with the strongest social support programs tend to rank very high on most life satisfaction / happiness surveys. Look at where countries like Sweden and Norway rank. They are always at the the top of most of these surveys. In the 2013 Happiness Survey the top countries were Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden. And they all have strong social support programs including some type of government supported, affordable health care.

On the Human Development Index, Australia and Norway rank higher than the U.S. and they have some form of universal health care, plus both countries are known for having minimum wage jobs people can actually live off on. Strong social service programs are not impediments to healthy economies.

[gimmethesimplelife]

Whats not fair? Whats holding you back?

Now I may think its not fair that I can't play golf like Tiger Woods, but that's life.

Seriously? You ask what's holding me back?

Certainly I'm nothing special and I'm not being singled out. What's holding me back is what's holding most people back these days. Rapidly rising prices, stagnant wages, health care spiraling out of control - though I have a fix for that one by going to Mexico as I have posted many times - and hopefully the ACA will slow down price increases but that remains to be seen. That fact that the money is sifting up to the top and the rest of us are getting less and less of the scraps. The fact that the fabled upward mobility of the US is now so non-existent for most of us that Denmark, a country with very high taxes that I very much approve of, has more upward mobility than the US does. As does Canada if you can handle the climate there. Certainly someone as knowledgeable as yourself - and there is no sarcasm here, you do seem very well read and intelligent - knows the truth of what I have posted here. Maybe you are at the top, I don't know? But if you are not, how could you not know this and not see this around you? Basically, what holds me back as is what America has become, just as this is what holds most of us back today. Rob

[gimmethesimplelife]

Maybe it's less comfortable if you are unskilled labor, but I would not agree that it is less fair if you are gay, black, a woman, or entrepreneurial middle class.



Rob, we've beaten this one up pretty hard elsewhere so I am reluctant to rehash it here. But since I don't really buy into social class to start with I wouldn't know where to begin. Suffice to say I would base it on the system you would design before knowing when or where you would land in it. My personal view is that we provide a safety net floor but don't unduly inhibit activities that allow the whole system to rise and improve living standards.

I was twelve when I understood about social classes and the basics of how they work in America. No one had to tell me anything - growing up poor yet being somewhat intelligent I was able to figure this out on my own. I bet you never ran across another 13 year old who would spend time at the library - this was in the days before the Internet - spending hours doing research comparison shopping their citizenship against other countries. But yes, I was thirteen when I started doing this. This is not a function of intelligence, just a function of seeing things with no loyalty and being able to cut through all the BS to what's at the core. Unfortunately in some ways I have been cursed with this ability, it's not the most pleasant thing to have, trust me on this. Rob

[Yossarian]

Actually, the Gallup poll measured positive attitude.

Not exactly. And they frame the questions like this because asking are you "happy" is pretty meaningless. It's the same methodology used in some of the other indexes mentioned above.

Gallup measured positive emotions in 148 countries and areas in 2011 using five questions. These questions ask people whether they experienced a lot of enjoyment the day before the survey and whether they felt respected, well-rested, laughed and smiled a lot, and did or learned something interesting.

The average percentage of respondents worldwide who said "yes" to these five questions reflects a relatively upbeat world. Gallup found that 85% of adults worldwide felt treated with respect all day, 72% smiled and laughed a lot, 73% felt enjoyment a lot of the day, and 72% felt well-rested. The only emotion that less than half of people worldwide reported experiencing was getting to learn or do something interesting the previous day, at 43%. Despite many global challenges, people worldwide are experiencing many positive emotions.

This illustrates the fallacy of these types of studies. Gallup measured positive feelings. I don't know how you separate disposition from circumstance. So you can people who objectively have it good but have a culture of cynicism rate low or people who have it bad vice versa. It illustrates my point that you have to take happiness surveys with a big big grain of salt.

[Yossarian]

Australia and Norway rank higher than the U.S. and they have some form of universal health care, plus both countries are known for having minimum wage jobs people can actually live off on. Strong social service programs are not impediments to healthy economies.

Especially when you are a commodities economy in a commodities boom. The margin of error on these things is huge, particularly when you add self reported subjective factors. You are kidding yourself if you think they prove any thing.