you have to admit english people have a weird tick when it comes to poverty. you worship poor people. and yes, you guys willingly live like you are poor when you guys are definitely not poor
This is such a weird take. I have no idea where you are getting your ideas from, but I don't know if you've heard of this thing we have in the UK called 'the class system'. Poor people are definitely not worshipped in the UK. And the wealthy do generally like to demonstrate their wealth in the usual ways (cars, homes, holidays, schooling, etc), so I'm wondering where you've got this idea that people in the UK somehow romanticise poverty.
I'm not english at all. Just pointing out that no American should ever be criticizing anyone for how their government and society is setup. The only reasons Americans need to be "rich" is because health insurance is a scam, a car accident can bankrupt you, the tax code is entirely for the wealthy, and social services are poor at best. It's a fake wealth, one where you can have 3M in investments and not be able to retire because the system is set up so poorly.
> The only reasons Americans need to be "rich" is because health insurance is a scam, a car accident can bankrupt you,
92% of Americans have health insurance. About a third have insurance through the government. Rather than being a scam, most Americans don't understand just how much it costs because of the employer subsidies. At any rate, given the existence of both auto and health insurance, it is hard to go bankrupt from a car accident. Medical bankruptcy gets a lot of attention because it should never happen, not because it is common.
> the tax code is entirely for the wealthy
This makes no sense coming from the UK. The US taxation system is remarkably progressive. Marginal tax brackets, a large standard deduction, and CTC/EITC mean about ~40% of American households pay no federal income tax, or even pay a negative tax (eg., they get paid.) Meanwhile, the UK has the insanely regressive 18% VAT. This would never pass muster in the US because of its regressiveness.
Health insurance that covers nothing and people celebrate murder healthcare CEOs because their family members are dying. What a fantastic system.
People definitely understand how screwed they are, and being patronizing and trotting out lots of useless stats does nothing for people struggling to get coverage.
I have a HDHP. I think most people would describe that as "health insurance that covers nothing." Most people, however, do not have HDHPs. Medicare and Medicaid have incredible coverage. Most PPO plans have great coverage. As a general rule, US health insurance covers too much, including quackery like chiropractery.
There are definitely edge cases and horrible things that happen and should not, but they are not the norm.
One major thing I do see is people demanding unlimited care of whatever kind they want for no cost. That doesn't exist at all in other countries, which are very restrictive in comparison. In a sensible country, we would not allow millions of people to get on extremely expensive (>1k per dose) off-label diabetes medication to lose weight. This is a fantastic example of spending billions of dollars of insurance premiums on something that for almost all its users is totally superfluous when cheaper and healthier options (but not as convenient) are readily available.
In the US, this happens all the time. The fundamental tension in US healthcare is not that "insurance is too expensive" (it is), "insurance denies claims" (it does), providers are too expensive (they are), the system is too complex (it is.) The fundamental tension is that people want everything, and they want it for nothing. At the end of the day, the only solutions are a) people pay what they can afford or b) you have rationing. Either path has problems. The US currently is trying to have everything for nothing, and the show can only go on for so long. Either people don't get care because they can't afford it, or they don't get care because bureaucrats determined it's not worth it. But they cannot get whatever care they want and can find a doctor to provide, for free.
It's a cultural difference I observed between Europeans and Americans: Americans hate it being called unsuccessful/poor, but don't mind being called dumb. Europeans hate being called stupid, but don't mind being called unsuccessful/poor. Obviously, it's not a binary thing, but there's some fundamental difference in attitude.
Not for long I suspect. There has been a rather marked exodus of millionaires from Britain since July as a result of a range of fiscal changes promised by the government. Some significant businesses have decided to relocate. Unrelated to this: now it's been found that a majority of Brits receive more in benefits than they contribute in taxes. Not a good outlook. Meanwhile it's estimated that the richest 1% of earners already pay 29% of the country’s income tax.
