Well, to be fair, they didn’t give nothing. The nuke countries just took it.

Not meaning to needle you, Mate. Once again, if I come across as a jerk, sorry.

I may have been unclear. If so, I apologise for it. I meant out of all the First World countries, the US (the richest country on the planet) has the worst health care outcomes.

Comparisons outside of the Western sphere, particularly with communist dictatorships, won’t really work.

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether you vote for people or policy then. If you are going to be shafted anyway it doesn’t matter.

However, as I said in my original post, this seems to be a very unique problem in the Western world. Other first world countries vote for people and policy and our experience is somewhat different.

Even I know that Trump did his best to sabotage the ACA. It’s not a secret. Just vote for the direct opposite of that fuck.

Not American, but curious as to why you don’t vote for polices that prevent the healthcare ripoff?

I mean, it’s all well and good applauding a single man’s actions, but you all could affect change of there was a genuine will to do so. Other western countries don’t have this problem that you are seemingly powerless to change?

I think that it goes a lot deeper than that. In the 90s I worked on a joint base shared with Americans and made a lot of American friends. They were shocked and sarcastic about the benefits that we had (Australians) that they did not have. Things such as long service leave (12 weeks paid leave after 10 years service) and even our four weeks annual leave. The shocked but I can understand, but the sarcasm I don’t get? It was as if our refusal to expend ourselves to the grind diminished us as a culture ?

That was 35 years ago, and our conditions have degraded accordingly. But I remember the American sentiment of the times well.

I always use railways to illustrate this example. Every developed country in the world has them. They are indispensable, cities would grind to a halt without mass commuter transportation. Yet, they are also notoriously expensive. They just don’t pay their way. People couldn’t afford the ride. But because they are an essential service, governments swallow the costs.

That’s the primary point of government. Not to wage war across the world, but to provide essential services to the people that private industry can’t do at an affordable price.