|
|
|
|
|
|
by cplanas
1661 days ago
|
|
|
Oh, I'm from Barcelona myself. While I agree with you that the upper class in the US is much richer than in Barcelona, I strongly disagree with you about the poor. I think very often about my particular situation, and what would have happened to me if I would have been born in the US. I come from a family that would be on the lower side of the middle class; unfortunately for us, there is a genetic illness running on my father's side of the family. In Spain, to get healthcare was never a problem; I'm not sure if that wouldn't have been an issue in the US.
I see the same problem with education: while we were not poor, I am not sure if I would have been able to go to one of the best schools in my country, as I did for free in Spain. Free education and healthcare are very important. On racism, I don't wanna sound harsh, but I believe you only see less because the US is much more segregated. I am typically perceived as Hispanic by most Americans, and believe me, racism is an issue. I don't want to imagine how it is for an immigrant from Africa or Latin America. |
|
|
Yes, the Spanish healthcare system works quite well; I'm a fan! It does a much better job of ensuring coverage than the US system, particularly for the lower middle class. In the US, the poorest ~25% have good public coverage through Medicaid or Medicare and the top ~40% do ok with the employer-subsidized system, but there's a giant donut hole in the middle with no good options and the system sucks for them.
> I see the same problem with education: while we were not poor, I am not sure if I would have been able to go to one of the best schools in my country, as I did for free in Spain.
I admire Spain's commitment to free university education and I think it's a good deal for some folks, the lower middle class in particular. But for helping the very poorest advance, I'm not sure it works in practice. The Spanish high-school graduation rate is much lower than the US one, and anecdotally at least I feel like the children from low-income families I know here in Spain are less likely to consider university or a professional career an option at all compared to their peers in the US, despite it being free. I'm not sure how to fix this.
> On racism, I don't wanna sound harsh, but I believe you only see less because the US is much more segregated. I am typically perceived as Hispanic by most Americans, and believe me, racism is an issue.
It's possible that US cities are more segregated on average, but I don't think that's driving my personal observations. I've lived in low-income neighborhoods with 20-90% minority populations my entire adult life, so I've had a lot of exposure to race relations to calibrate against. More concretely, my wife happens to be hispanic, and feels she's experienced more negative racism in Barcelona than she ever did in the US.