Comment on It's funny how once a country has Universal Healthcare they never give it up.

• Schmoo@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  China has a larger population and land area than the United States and they have universal healthcare. There’s nothing special about the US that makes universal healthcare more difficult to implement except the entrenched special interests that lobby the government to prevent it.

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  • feral_sh@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    They are also significantly more culturally homogenous and they’re the oldest established civilization on the planet, so that sounds about right.

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    • Schmoo@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I don’t understand what any of that has to do with healthcare.

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      • feral_sh@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Oh, ok. Might want to study the legal system and how laws are passed. It’ll make sense after that.

        If it still doesn’t, I can’t help sorry.

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• slickgoat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  And the US is?

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  • feral_sh@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Where are you going with this? Please continue. I’m curious.

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    • slickgoat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Ok, thanks for your question.

      Ok, I’m not American, I’m Australian (getting that out of the way up front).

      But… But, we are saturated with US culture, American social norms and politics. I could say with a large degree of confidence that an average Australian (or European) could pass a pop quiz on the United States probably better than an average American. This isn’t a boast, it’s a fact of life due to the relative size of our comparative social footprints.

      So when I say that the US isn’t one country, but many, I’m not being facetious. Your federal system consists of a bunch of little fifedoms comparable with Germany in the 18th century. On the face of it, yes, you are, of course, ‘United’. In reality you guys seem fundamentally Balkanised.

      Culturally, socially, religiously, and very much politically, you might as well have hard borders.

      That’s what my casual one-liner meant to convey.

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      • feral_sh@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Makes sense, and I could definitely see how someone outside the US could develop that perspective. Thank you.

        It’s pretty accurate but a bit more nuanced than how you described it!

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