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Europe Is Baffled by the U.S. Supreme Court

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It is good to see us proud, ignorant, American fucks are united in the bashing of Europe most heinous attribute...society! May your days be graced with the kicking of a dying man into the street curb.
 
If anyone should be kicked to the curb, let it be US Big Pharma. They have literally become Joseph Mengele's wet dream. A lobbyist-inspired Congress has virtually allowed the fox to guard an overmedicated henhouse in the form of a health care [closer to pain management] system gone heinously wrong.
 
Greenman said:
Is there some reason why we should care what Europe thinks?
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Is there any particular reason why Americans shouldn't care?

This works both ways of course.

The US and Europe are happy to tell the Chinese and the Russians what they should be doing with regards to democracy and human rights.

Getting angsty and defensive at every and any criticism is counter-productive.
 
So Europeans think our healthcare law was anything like universal healthcare? Providing healthcare and saying "You must buy overpriced health insurance from greedy companies" are different things.

And liberals need to stop pretending the individual mandate is anything but a Republican "personal responsibility" scam to punish the poor.
 
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monovillage said:
Wasn't that Benedict Arnold? Europe is usually baffled by freedom, it's why they were so anxious to place themselves in the EU chains once the Soviets died.
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That's a joke right? You don't actually believe something that stupid I hope.
 
Anyone who has spent time in northern European countries knows that life is simply better there. They are statistically happier with better work-life balance...and health care. I am not agreeing that Obamacare is the way, not in the slightest, but we do have a lot to learn from our European allies.
 
dmcowen674 said:
the idea that health care coverage, largely considered a universal right in Europe, could be deemed an affront to liberty is baffling.
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Health care coverage is not deemed an affront to liberty.... federal government making laws forcing private citizens to purchase a specific product from a private third party is an affront to liberty.

"If Americans are promised not just liberty but life and happiness, is there not a constitutional right to affordable healthcare?"
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Short answer: no. I'm not sure how one defines affordable, but there is no innate right to have someone else pay for your medical expenses.

In the German edition of The Financial Times, Sabine Muscat is astonished at Justice Antonin Scalia's argument that if the government can mandate insurance, it can also require people to eat broccoli. "Absurder Vergleich" reads the article's kicker, which in English translates to, "Absurd Comparison." In trying to defeat the bill, Muscat writes, Scalia is making a "strange analogy [to] vegetables."
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Apparently, Sabine Muscat is too dumb to understand the idea of setting precedents and taking an argument to its logical conclusion.

I'm Dutch, though I moved to the US 20+ years ago. To most Europeans, the idea of government not having full control of most facets of your life is foreign. They simply accept the fact that government controls everything as normal. Unfortunately, the US seems to be heading that way as well.

Having lived in several western European countries for years and having personal experience with their health care systems, I'd tell them to take their superiority complex and shove it up their butt.
 
thraashman said:
Considering we spend more money on healthcare than any other country and are ranked 37th in the world in healthcare, maybe we should listen to some of those other countries.
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So cost should be the determining factor? Sorry, I'll take my liberty over cost any day.
 
GTaudiophile said:
Anyone who has spent time in northern European countries knows that life is simply better there. They are statistically happier with better work-life balance...and health care. I am not agreeing that Obamacare is the way, not in the slightest, but we do have a lot to learn from our European allies.
Click to expand...

I've never lived in northern Europe (I lived in western Europe), but I don't think one can say that life is simply better there. It depends on what you want out of life and your circumstances. If you're poor, life there is most certainly better there.

There are a lot of things we can learn from them, and there are a lot of things they can learn from us. Simply assuming that a system in place somewhere will work the same way in the US is naive at best. Health care is a very complex subject with a lot of aspects to consider.
 
Greenman said:
Is there some reason why we should care what Europe thinks?
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None whatsoever. The people in Europe complaining are ignorant of our history and our Constitution.

Reform is needed and I've always supported a catastrophic health insurance plan provided by the government. However, the travesty before us is ridiculous. I am not sure if it will get thrown out or not, but I have to admit, if it does get thrown out, I will pull up a chair with some popcorn and watch the inevitable meltdown by the lefties here.
 
Double Trouble said:
I've never lived in northern Europe (I lived in western Europe), but I don't think one can say that life is simply better there. It depends on what you want out of life and your circumstances. If you're poor, life there is most certainly better there.

There are a lot of things we can learn from them, and there are a lot of things they can learn from us. Simply assuming that a system in place somewhere will work the same way in the US is naive at best. Health care is a very complex subject with a lot of aspects to consider.
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In some ways I'd say that Americans are nuts. We can always earn more money, but no one can buy one more time. That's the ultimate limiting ingredient to life, yet we are a nation obsessed with "the clock."

We lead a highly stressed life and that more than anything else is why we aren't as healthy as some nations. We have people who do the same work as they did in much less time and they consequently have to deal with job stress and inadequate income, and others who have to work more for the same or less to do twice the work.

Most cultures have some siesta or equivalent which is restorative. I work with my right hand and eat with my left. That's my lunch. In my immediate area my company had one pharmacist take his life because staffing cuts overwhelmed him, another drop dead while working and a third who dropped and will be out indefinitely. That's in 4 months.

We're batshit crazy in some ways, and that's one thing that won't change. Since that won't we'll die earlier than other western nations no matter what changes are made in health care.
 
GTaudiophile said:
Anyone who has spent time in northern European countries knows that life is simply better there. They are statistically happier with better work-life balance...and health care. I am not agreeing that Obamacare is the way, not in the slightest, but we do have a lot to learn from our European allies.
Click to expand...

See bolded. Europeans in general have far better work-life balance than those of us in the US, and many can't understand why we devote so much time to our "careers." I put that in quotes because I think people who define themselves by a job are sad and need to get some perspective on life. That's one area where the Europeans are far ahead of us.
 
Hayabusa Rider said:
In some ways I'd say that Americans are nuts. We can always earn more money, but no one can buy one more time. That's the ultimate limiting ingredient to life, yet we are a nation obsessed with "the clock."

We lead a highly stressed life and that more than anything else is why we aren't as healthy as some nations. We have people who do the same work as they did in much less time and they consequently have to deal with job stress and inadequate income, and others who have to work more for the same or less to do twice the work.

Most cultures have some siesta or equivalent which is restorative. I work with my right hand and eat with my left. That's my lunch. In my immediate area my company had one pharmacist take his life because staffing cuts overwhelmed him, another drop dead while working and a third who dropped and will be out indefinitely. That's in 4 months.

We're batshit crazy in some ways, and that's one thing that won't change. Since that won't we'll die earlier than other western nations no matter what changes are made in health care.
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This.

This is one of the reasons I'm reluctant to leave my job until I'm forced out while kicking and screaming. I can make more elsewhere, but aside from a project here or there, it is relatively stress free and the benefits and perks are awesome. I spent quite a bit of time on business in Europe a few years ago and it changed my perspective.

I'd say that my health definitely suffered from earlier, more stressful jobs however and I think a cultural change is needed as much as anything else.
 
Hayabusa Rider said:
In some ways I'd say that Americans are nuts. We can always earn more money, but no one can buy one more time. That's the ultimate limiting ingredient to life, yet we are a nation obsessed with "the clock."

We lead a highly stressed life and that more than anything else is why we aren't as healthy as some nations. We have people who do the same work as they did in much less time and they consequently have to deal with job stress and inadequate income, and others who have to work more for the same or less to do twice the work.

Most cultures have some siesta or equivalent which is restorative. I work with my right hand and eat with my left. That's my lunch. In my immediate area my company had one pharmacist take his life because staffing cuts overwhelmed him, another drop dead while working and a third who dropped and will be out indefinitely. That's in 4 months.

We're batshit crazy in some ways, and that's one thing that won't change. Since that won't we'll die earlier than other western nations no matter what changes are made in health care.
Click to expand...
This is always good to be reminded of. Americans view their work as more central to their identity than is healthy. I gather that a lot of people view this as being inherited from the protestant work ethic, but this is wrong. The protestant work ethic was built upon a notion that there is inehrent human dignity, and that in order to honor that dignity one must engage in wholesome, productive work. That original notion that work was evidence of dignity has become corrupted into work being seen as the source of dignity. After all, within the old protestant work ethic there was also enshrined a time to rest. There are no remaining social mores which protect the notion of rest. Everything is open 24/7 and everybody's jostling to pick up another shift. This is suicidal. Sure the religiostiy behind weekend blue laws was absurd, but maybe that was a small price to pay for a brief respite from that other chunk of insanity.

The perception of work as one's source of dignity is exacerbated by a gripping fear because health care is so deeply tied to one's employment. When one's survival is contingent on not losing one's job there is a continual tinge of terror that eats away at one's soul. To me this was one of the most disappointing things about PPACA. There are ways to make a private system move away from the employer provided model and towards one where individuals are more empowered to get the coverage they want from a market that prices non-group coverage sanely and consistently. Rather than do that they doubled down on employer centered coverage as the vehicle through which an even larger majority of people must get coverage. I would have even prefered a socialized system to a deeper entrenching of employer provided coverage. Anything to remove the government sponsored link between one's physical survival and one's employment.
 
GTaudiophile said:
Anyone who has spent time in northern European countries knows that life is simply better there. They are statistically happier with better work-life balance...and health care. I am not agreeing that Obamacare is the way, not in the slightest, but we do have a lot to learn from our European allies.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately the Americans who would prefer that are too trifling to move themselves there.

Hayabusa Rider said:
In some ways I'd say that Americans are nuts. We can always earn more money, but no one can buy one more time. That's the ultimate limiting ingredient to life, yet we are a nation obsessed with "the clock."

We lead a highly stressed life and that more than anything else is why we aren't as healthy as some nations. We have people who do the same work as they did in much less time and they consequently have to deal with job stress and inadequate income, and others who have to work more for the same or less to do twice the work.

Most cultures have some siesta or equivalent which is restorative. I work with my right hand and eat with my left. That's my lunch. In my immediate area my company had one pharmacist take his life because staffing cuts overwhelmed him, another drop dead while working and a third who dropped and will be out indefinitely. That's in 4 months.

We're batshit crazy in some ways, and that's one thing that won't change. Since that won't we'll die earlier than other western nations no matter what changes are made in health care.
Click to expand...
QFT
 
IndyColtsFan said:
See bolded. Europeans in general have far better work-life balance than those of us in the US, and many can't understand why we devote so much time to our "careers." I put that in quotes because I think people who define themselves by a job are sad and need to get some perspective on life. That's one area where the Europeans are far ahead of us.
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One of the reasons Europeans have a better work-life balance is because their life isn't tied to their work in the very literal way our healthcare coverage is tied to our employment here.
 
Moonbeam said:
Oh boy, here we go with self hate Americans feeling once again inferior to the Europeans. But what else is new. People who wear the self hate on their sleeves radiate inferiority. It's really pig stupid that we don't have universal health care and anybody not raised an America with his head up his ass knows it. And one more thing my pitiful fellow citizens, I just got done eating a huge plate of broccoli.
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Or it could be that we're bright enough to understand that when a line of reasoning is credited to an entire continent, it's most likely hyperbole.
 
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