[gottorf]

> Your point is totally and completely wrong. Germany has public benefits that actually matter.

Objectively wrong, because Germany does better in the things that subjectively matter to you?

> Germany's average life expectancy is ahead of Mississippi by 10 years.

Comparing like for like, that gap drops down to 5-6 years and puts Mississippi on par with, say, Thailand or Latvia. Hardly grounds for condemnation.

> Germany ranks as one of the highest in the world in general satisfaction of the people, Mississippi does not.

Those rankings are all stupid, but in most of the ones I've seen, Germany ranks a scant few spots higher than the US. Sure, if Mississippi were a country, the distance would be greater, but how meaningful is it? I just saw one that ranks Saudi Arabia and El Salvador ahead of Spain and Italy[0].

And in any case, why do people keep leaving those satisfactory countries for America?

[0]: https://data.worldhappiness.report/table

[WalterBright]

> general satisfaction of the people

Different groups of people have different ideas of what "general satisfaction" is. Hence, such cross-group studies are pretty suspect.

[micro2588]

One objective measure of satisfaction is if you are alive and healthy, hard to be satisfied otherwise.

[WalterBright]

"healthy" is not objective, either.

[micro2588]

Of course it is, to be healthy you need to be born Mississippi is double the OCED average for infant mortality. Then you can track obesity, diabetes, heart diseases, etc. throughout life. The only area where all this supposed American exceptional wealth confers an advantage in healthcare is post op outcomes where higher penetration of CT / MRI scans can make a measurable difference. Even then the difference is not large. You don't get a DECADE of life expectancy difference without an objective difference in health.

[WalterBright]

> OCED average for infant mortality

This is no good because different companies use different criteria for infant mortality. For example, the US leads the world in trying to save premies, and does well at it. But the failures are counted as infant mortality. Other countries categorize premie death as a miscarriage.

Some societies do not count a baby as an infant until it has survived its first year.

> life expectancy difference

Criminality, drugs, tobacco, alcohol and obesity strongly affect life expectancy. It's an error to blame it all on the health care system.

[computerex]

> And in any case, why do people keep leaving those satisfactory countries for America?

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2026/...

America used to be a great place to be. To put it in perspective, I myself am an American in the top 5% of earning households. I am strongly considering leaving. The value is no longer here. I don't want to live in a country where my healthcare is conditional, on principal. I don't want to live in a country where the Epstein class is protected.