[dmode]

I have no idea what you just said. I personally, have lived in Denmark, Netherlands, and Germany - quite socialist, and big government places, with public healthcare, education, childcare, strong safety nets, unions, worker protections, so on and so forth. And life was freaking great. In fact, in Netherlands, you only needed to work for 36 hours. Those were the happiest times of my life.

[nec4b]

Except that none of those places are socialist, instead they are one of the most capitalist countries on earth.

[robomartin]

Those are not socialist nations, not even close. This is a common response that has no basis in reality.

For example: Have any of those nations taken over and nationalized large businesses? Have any of those nations grown government so large that a massive percentage of the population depends on it to survive?

Those countries are as capitalist as you can get in practice. They just happen to have one or more well developed social programs that compare favorably to the US. This is commendable, BTW, and there is no reason for which the US should not actually do better than all of these nations put together on these fronts. The reason we do not is because our politicians, well, suck.

When people point at just a handful of European nations and claim them to be examples of socialism doing well, the usually point at Nordic countries and even places like Germany and the Netherlands, as you did.

This false assertion is always based on a single data point: Healthcare. Or, by extension, high taxes and healthcare and maybe education. Nothing else.

Well folks, universal healthcare does not make a country socialist. Show me where Karl Marx explained this was the goal of socialism and you might have a point.

It's even worse when you truly look a the economies in these countries and understand how it is they are able to do as they do. For example, having an oil-based economy that supports great social programs --which is like winning the lottery at a national level and using the money intelligently.

The reason the US does not have an equivalent healthcare system is because politicians, on both sides of the ideological divide, have been focusing on the wrong variable in this complex multivariate equation: Insurance.

The US does not have a health insurance problem, it has a health costs problem. Until that side of the equation is balanced the situation will not improve, whether you go to Medicare for all or do something else. This is a business, and you have to balance costs if you want to improve outcomes.

What are the cost drivers?

The first layer might be a heavy regulatory framework that makes everything more expensive. Regulation is important and necessary. Over-regulation, to the point where the cost of doing business is negatively affected, is bad for everyone. Just try to develop a medical device or drug in the US and see what happens.

I have been wanting to develop a specialized hearing aid for what is known as "Single Side Deafness" for quite some time. It's impossible without a massive amount of money and likely not a large enough market to make it worth investor's funding such an effort. The impediment isn't in technology, it's in the onerous and extremely expensive (in time and money) regulatory framework. We end-up with investors and intelligent folks devoting their money and smarts to figuring out how to get more people to click on links than devoting their time and money to solving important problems.

Why is it that Europe and others pay so much less for the same drugs and devices that are so expensive in the US. Because we develop them here and the US bares 100% of the cost of the US regulatory burden. In other words, we, in the US, pay for what it cost to do business here. The rest of the world pays for the basic COGS on these products plus some profit. The difference is massive. If the various European nations had to pay for the actual cost of developing anything sourced from US companies their medical systems would crack and crumble. The UK's NHS is and has been in trouble for some times precisely due to the cost side of the equation, something that is unsustainable [0]. In 2017 the NHS's budget represented over 30% of public spending. Something like that is not sustainable. The net result is that care goes to hell, people have to wait months for care and others who are able to end-up paying for private care (negating the entire concept of these systems being the solution to healthcare).

That's just ONE of the cost drivers in the US. Next you have to look at tort reform. For those not familiar with the term, it means lawsuits, doctors, clinics, hospitals, medical device and drug manufacturers exposure to being sued.

This is a problem in the US that permeates almost every aspect of life to varying degrees. For example, if you run a website today you can be sued any time if you don't implement ADA accessibility guidelines. I am NOT saying the ADA guidelines are a bad thing, what I am saying is that in the US we use a sledge-hammer in the form of lawsuits or the threat of lawsuits rather than a more rational and less socially costly process.

In the medical field, the cost of lawsuits is massive. Which also means insurance costs are large. Doctors, depending on specialization, have to pay for very expensive protection (insurance) against predatory attorneys looking to make a buck from any mistake they might make when treating a patient. The cost for hospitals and medical device and drug manufacturers is equally massive.

There are repercussions to this structure. A simple example is that doctors will order and perform a battery of sometimes unnecessary tests on patients simply because of the threat. Nobody wants to go to court and have to face severe career-ending penalties, so they order tons of tests to cover their behinds. Medicine ceases to be about the patient when doctors are worried about lawyers.

Yet another cost driver is the high cost of university education in the US, and, in particular, medical education. When a doctor graduates with US $300K in debt they cannot earn below a certain threshold. Their lives will soon include added costs for a house, car and eventually a growing family with their own cost structures. They will also need insurance for their home, cars, healthcare and practice. Without charging enough for their services they become enslaved to the cost of their education. As it is, most will require decades to pay off these loans.

The cost of our education is out of control precisely due to government intervention. When a government guarantees loans as they do universities charge massive amounts of money for their degrees. The result is a chain reaction of costs at every level that affect the competitiveness of our medical industry in more ways than one.

It's easy to point at a few countries in Europe and, just because they have "socialized" medicine and high taxes conclude that's utopia and the US's problems are due to evil capitalism. A more intellectually honest dive into the realities behind these issues reveals a completely different scenario, a truth where most of the failings in the US are easily attributable to failures in policy and politics and government becoming far more involved than they should.

And then there's the "life is great" assertion and yet we don't see hundreds of millions of people wanting to move into any of these nations. In fact, if they don't control immigration tightly they would crumble in short order. Interestingly enough, if the US made immigration free and open we would probably easily double our population in a very short period of time. Everyone wants to come here, including people from the countries you mentioned. I also presume from your comment you no longer live in any of those countries. If life was so great, why not? The most common answer to that question is, lack of opportunity. Everything comes at a cost.

[0] "10 charts that show why the NHS is in trouble" https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42572110

[dmode]

Those are overwhelmingly described as socialist nations in conservative media and is the north star of 99% of democratic policies

Edit: rest of your response. Where do I even start. Hundreds of millions of people are not looking to move to Europe ? Do you even read the news ? Have you heard about the refugee crisis in Europe ? Have you read about the divide between immigrant community in Europe ? Have you read about boats crossing the Mediterranean every day ?

[robomartin]

What media says, conservative or otherwise, has no relevance here. These are not socialist nations, period. This isn't even debatable. And, frankly, it is amazing anyone would believe this in a day and age when it is easy to google stuff and learn.

For example: Is Denmark socialist?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzEPKrHalaY

Get this, Denmark doesn't have a minimum wage! How socialist is that?

You are truly confused about a ton of stuff here. Of course I know about what's going on in Europe. I've only been going there for nearly thirty years with great regularity. I have watched as these uncontrolled migrations have devastated entire areas and the culture in some locations. Terrible stuff.

I digress. You are comparing things that have nothing to do with each other. For example, these migrants are escaping war and, in some cases, genocide. They could not care less where they go so long as it isn't where their feet happen to be during the war.

As a descendant of genocide survivors and one who had extensive conversations with my grandparents, I can tell you that they didn't get out their World Almanac and Political Science books along with world economic reports to figure out where to go; they got on the first ship, train, cart or horse that got them the hell out of there.

Please, stop and do a little reading. I'm sure you are an excellent person and one of great intelligence, you are simply operating with the wrong information and, as a result, have reached very flawed conclusions. The good news is this can be fixed if you are willing to consider things might not be as you have grown to believe.