What does American exceptionalism mean to you?

Royal Yoga wrote: I am not getting into politics, but I have lived in Europe and South America before making the US my home. I have traveled to many countries around the world and have friends and family worldwide. ALL of them envy me for living in the US. This is still the best country in the world to live in IMHO. Where else do people have so much freedom and possibilities?

I do agree RY..I've been everywhere too and there's no place i'd rather live..Except maybe Raratonga, possibly Hawaii. I love the south pacific, but America is and always will be home.

Lucky Luckhurst wrote:

Royal Yoga wrote: I am not getting into politics, but I have lived in Europe and South America before making the US my home. I have traveled to many countries around the world and have friends and family worldwide. ALL of them envy me for living in the US. This is still the best country in the world to live in IMHO. Where else do people have so much freedom and possibilities?

I do agree RY..I've been everywhere too and there's no place i'd rather live..Except maybe Raratonga, possibly Hawaii. I love the south pacific, but America is and always will be home.

News flash, Hawaii is in America.

archer wrote: The "long wait for healthcare" issue is very regional. In the beginning, yes the waits were long....how could they not be when they added 30% more people to an existing system? Every year it improves and those areas understaffed by medical personnel are doing the best they can, and the waits are getting shorter. I hear few complaints from my family or friends there....they get what they consider is great care and that care is available to every citizen. What a novel idea. These are very conservative right wing folks...like the rest of my family here in the states....but universal healthcare is considered a conservative issue there....it keeps the middle class from having to pay more for healthcare to subsidize the poor and indigent. They pretty much laugh at us here for being so backwards on the issue of healthcare.

How much more expensive is being forced to purchase insurance over deciding to not purchase it archer? I myself was uninsured, by choice, for a number of years when I was a young lad. What services I needed I purchased when needed. A trip to the family physician to have them prescribe antibiotics for a sore throat really wasn't that expensive, nor was the trip to have 10 stitches in my hand after slicing it open during a paintball excursion with my soccer teammates. I even paid for a trip to the emergency room to have a severely sprained ankle examined, imaged and treated. As I, and my body, aged, I made the decision to purchase health insurance.

The middle class will not evade sudsidizing the cost of the care for the poor and the indigent by forcing everyone to purchase a product of the government's choosing. The subsidy is simply shifted from cost of care to an increased tax burden. The poor and the indigent can't afford to purchase health insurance anymore than they can afford to purchase health care. The money to purchase the insurance for the poor and the indigent and the money that the insurance company pays out in benefits for their care all comes from the same place regardless of whether everyone has insurance or not - the pockets of the middle class whose premiums must rise to cover the increased costs the insurance companies will be incurring and the health insurance subsidies that are paid out of the tax money they remit to the various levels of government. Toss in a heavy dose of "free" services and you have the same government soup that has allowed the cost of tuition at our colleges and universities to rise at an even faster rate than the cost of health care and health insurance has over the last few decades.

Why not let the market solve the problem? When insurance becomes too expensive, more and more people will decide not to purchase the product. With fewer people insured, the costs that they are charged must adjust to what is affordable without the insurance or a new model of insurance will replace the current one. Perhaps we might even return to a more local model whereby each family pays their local doctors a small amount each month in exchange for being treated when they need to see them. Local hospitals may once again start offering families coverage for major care in exchange for a much smaller fee than the insurance companies charge. The solution to the problem isn't to have a small group of elected officials decide what needs to be done based upon the political profit that they can realize through their actions. That is the absolute surest way to ensure that the least effective solution is effected.

Ryt_Rick wrote:

Lucky Luckhurst wrote:

Royal Yoga wrote: I am not getting into politics, but I have lived in Europe and South America before making the US my home. I have traveled to many countries around the world and have friends and family worldwide. ALL of them envy me for living in the US. This is still the best country in the world to live in IMHO. Where else do people have so much freedom and possibilities?

I do agree RY..I've been everywhere too and there's no place i'd rather live..Except maybe Raratonga, possibly Hawaii. I love the south pacific, but America is and always will be home.

News flash, Hawaii is in America.

Not really, they have free universal health care for everyone, thier roads are in great shape and they have great workmans comp.

Hawaii one of the 57 states.

Boy the public school system in chiacgo really sux.

Lucky Luckhurst wrote: Not really, they have free universal health care for everyone . . .

Really Lucky? They have convinced all the doctors, nurses, technicians to donate their services for everyone, the construction industry builds the facilities as donations, the supplies needed are all donated by the manufacturers and the utility companies provide the power needed at no cost? Wow - that's pretty impressive. Oh, what's that you say? You mean that the citizens, residents and visitors are all taxed to provide the funds which are used to cover those costs? Well, we both know that that means it isn't "free", don't we?

Don't get too technical with VL PS, he probably looks like an adult but his mind is clearly still in grade school.

PrintSmith wrote:

Lucky Luckhurst wrote: Not really, they have free universal health care for everyone . . .

Really Lucky? They have convinced all the doctors, nurses, technicians to donate their services for everyone, the construction industry builds the facilities as donations, the supplies needed are all donated by the manufacturers and the utility companies provide the power needed at no cost? Wow - that's pretty impressive. Oh, what's that you say? You mean that the citizens, residents and visitors are all taxed to provide the funds which are used to cover those costs? Well, we both know that that means it isn't "free", don't we?

Oh yes, they are so overburdened with taxes in Hawaii- lol

If thats socialisim, I'll take it!