[rsj_hn]

As an adult, you should have a basic grasp of things like knowing which societies have large social insurance programs and which do not, rather than being baffled by these basic facts of life.

https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/social-spending.htm

Western society has a historically unique obsession with social insurance programs, to the point where between 20-30% of GDP is spent on social insurance, whereas in other socities the number is much lower. In fact the modern version of these programs were invented in Germany under Bismarck, and the ancient version in the Roman Empire with their bread dole. From the Roman Empire's 'dole' to the hospitals in the middle ages, there was a tradition in Western societies with having the government help the needy. That's not to say that individuals didn't help the needy in many different societies (begging was an occupation in early Islamic societies) but having organized government programs on a mass scale simply to help the poor was the invention of Western civilization during the Roman Empire and continued as a Western obsession to the present day.

Even in the US, the share of national wealth spent on social benefits is 19%, the dirty secret being not that the US spends much less than Europe on things like publicly funding healthcare and education (because the US government spends about the same amount as in Europe), but in the US those public funds are pocketed by well-paid professionals and still the private sector is left with large individual bills, whereas in Europe those same institutions have to get by on the public funds only.

If you want a quick way of shutting someone up who is arguing that the US should have European style funding of universities, tell them we already spend as much as they do in Europe with public subsidies, so the missing step is just making tuition and fees illegal with no increase in government spending. Same thing for healthcare. That will be a cold dose of reality.

[inglor_cz]

"whereas in Europe those same institutions have to get by on the public funds only."

Europe isn't a homogeneous place and you have a lot of private healthcare and educational institutions here. They might not form a majority, but richer people will often make use of them, if they dislike the public option or consider it subpar.

Sometimes not even richer people. I know a lady in Madrid who does not make much money, but gives about half of her income for her son's schooling. He visits a semiprivate school where he gets reasonable education. In her own words, a fully public option would mean that he might not even learn proper Spanish, as only kids of the poorest immigrants frequent it.

[rsj_hn]

Yes, this is a good point. Everything is messier in real life than a few paragraphs can properly portray.

But my main point is that the difference between the national healthcare you see in Europe versus the U.S. is not the level of public spending, but the universal nature of service delivery achieved for roughly the same total public spending. The same thing for university education.

In both cases, the government spends an enormous amount and in Europe that covers a baseline of service (with private spending optional to supplement it) but in the US that covers maybe 1/2-1/3 of your bill, leaving private citizens to still face huge costs for things that are fully covered in Europe. The natural solution -- to cut employment and wages on the part of US healthcare or education workers so that they make do with the public funds they are already receiving -- is rarely advocated by those who want a more european-style system of social insurance.