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The last gasp of the europoor
For years, I've been treated to a steady diet of smug elitism coming from effete liberal Europeans laughing at obese, gun-toting and bible-thumpin' Americans. This reached its crescendo during the George W. Bush administration, took a lull during the Obama years and was resurrected after Trump took office.
The American was an ignoramus, a loud-mouth, a religious fundamentalist and irreversibly stupid. Hopelessly inferior to us sophisticated and cosmopolitan Europeans. Did you know half of Americans don't even own a passport? Most don't even know a second language!? Ha! And don't get me started on their healthcare, their gun crime and all other sorts of social pathologies. America, you see, is a third world nation masquerading as a first world one.
But as the years went by, these smirks felt increasingly hollow. The economic distance - and with it, standard of living - between the two major partners is growing wider by the day. A young French econ professor at Wharton lays out the bad news over just how deluded his fellow Europeans are on this question. Prominent FT columnists have noted the same.
Yet, perhaps there is still time to save the last shreds of honor for us poor Europeans. For one, the gap in PPP terms doesn't seem to be changing much. Europe has been behind for a long time. In terms of total GDP, the situation is much the same. Another aspect is that Europeans tend to work fewer hours.
While some of these arguments may have some validity, they all feel like desperate excuses. I for one am very much happy to see the insufferable elitism of Europeans slowly being wiped off our collective smug faces. The uncouth and primitive barbarian across the ocean turned out to be smarter and harder-working all along.
Perhaps this can also lead to a more pro-capitalist liberalism in the US. For much of my upbringing, liberal Americans were typified by folks such as Michael Moore and his obsessive admiration of the European welfare state. Colbert's snark about the embarrassing Red State American always felt like an underhanded way to gain favor with declassé elites across the ocean. Ann Coulter's observation that liberal elites in the US loved soccer because it is European surely hit closer to home than many in the media were willing to admit.
Of course, there is still some amount of liberal American simping left in the bag. This is perhaps most obvious whenever there are discussions on urban policy and the words "walkable city" invariably comes up. (To be clear, I actually think Europe gets this part better than the US).
Outside of an increasingly narrowing set of areas where Europe still outperforms, we are slowly witnessing a reshuffling of the deck. The old illusions are slowly coming undone and reddit-tier arguments about the US being a third world hellhole are convincing fewer by the day. At long last, after years of insufferable and unjustified smug elitism, the europoor is finally unmasked as the sham living on a lie that he always was. And I couldn't be happier.
I spent a distressingly long amount of time thinking that the US and the EU were peers, or that most people can be truly equanimous between them.
Then I saw that an electrician in the US often outearns a UK professor/doctor/senior engineer, owns a bigger house, has more cars, and can enjoy the breadth of half a continent, and a proper continent at that.
So what if the Euros have socialized healthcare? At least in the UK (not EU, I know), the NHS is absolutely swamped and gasping for breadth, with elective surgeries having waitlists months long, and if I wanted to have my ADHD diagnosis ratified, I have to settle for a two year waiting period for an NHS shrink, or spend upwards of 800 GBP like 2rafa said was typical for even a teleconsult from a private consultant.
Everything is smaller, and often just a bit shabbier there. Even I, someone who lives somewhere barely acceptable to modern sensibilities, can clearly see that and plan accordingly.
I agree with your point generally, but the NHS is a really unfair thing to saddle Europe with. It really is socialised healthcare, and it works as well as communism usually works. Britain is a great place to visit, but don't get sick.
The rest of Europe is better. Germany for instance has normal GPs and also compulsory health insurance a bit similar to Obamacare. That produces some overservicing because everyone is finding ways to milk the insurance companies, but overall that better than the communist underservicing you get in Britain.
The only nation I have any authoritative knowledge on in Europe is the UK, but I get your point.
While I'm fond of the idea of free public healthcare, a country needs to be very wealthy indeed to provide it at a quality equivalent to what you can get from market rates in a private setting. They will need at least an implicit idea of cost-benefit, since there many interventions that work but have 5 or 6 figure price tags. I'm aware the NHS does that, albeit with public pressure often forcing them to accept treatments with terrible returns.
Or as I'd put it, if you're getting sick, you better aim to be really sick if you want something done about it in a timely manner. Around the point where the ER doctors need to triage you first so their metrics aren't screwed by you dying on their doorstep.
But in practice it is the sin of the American system to overpay for treatments because of what amounts to public pressure (as manipulated by those who stand to profit). The NHS is actually quite good at denying costly treatments, at least by the standards of 1st world healthcare systems.
I could very well be wrong, but I'm under the impression that most of the massive spends come from insurance companies.
Yes, that increases premiums for everyone else, but the US is wealthy enough to take it. I'm unsure what facilities are available to some poor uninsured bastard (literally poor) who catches a particularly unusual type of leukemia and would need 6 figures in treatment with dubious outcomes. Surely the government doesn't foot that bill, and said person dies on the street or in a hospital instead?
If it's people paying out of pocket directly or indirectly through insurers, that's a different matter in my eyes, albeit not that big a difference. At least the Americans break in new techniques and drugs, and the price eventually drops to something cheap enough for the rest of us.
(I agree with your points, this is all additional commentary, and commentary I'm not sure on)
I'm ignorant, but I think hospitals are obligated to treat people?
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But not the sort of really sick where you need a scan to find out that your illness is life threatening.
I have a cousin who only found out about that when she flew back to her 3rd world homeland to get treatment.
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