Wait – isn’t that a French solution?

Oh – and by the way … France doesn’t have a pure single payer system.”

……..You’re right about nuclear power which several European countries have as part of their energy mix, and the French healthcare system……… but you have to remember we’re living in Sinz’s right wing , demonized, little world in which the US is faultless, Europe=bad, Obama is conspiring to create a single payer system of healthcare, and the ignorant are despised by elitist liberal bloggers for having a somewhat shaky grasp of the facts.

Wait – isn’t that a French solution?

Oh – and by the way … France doesn’t have a pure single payer system. Rather, complimentary health insurance policies are offered by mutuelle’s (non-profit providers) and complémentaire santé’s (which sound a lot like the co-ops that a bunch of politicians keep advocating for).

America is pretty damned entrepreneurial. I have no doubt that the free market will come up with plenty of unique American solutions to fill the need of people wanting more coverage than a public option can pay for. And I have no doubt that the freedom-loving American people will resist any regulations that prevent those solutions from being legal.

Andy you know what – thanks in no small part to those religious righters who you yourself decry from time to time, America most certainly DOES have pockets of “backwardness” and “primitivism”. Hell, circulating the internet these days is a video of a Republican state congresswoman in Arizona declaring in a committee meeting, with no sense of irony or humor, that the world has been around for 6,000 years. Is it elitism, or “Europhilia” to point out that she and by extension her constituents are pretty damned backwards? How about whole states that elect people like Huckabee and Brownback who dispute evolution. You’re really saying that’s not more akin to a primitive belief system, than a modern one?

My point essentially was his thesis is misguided. If you want to talk comparisons, fine. But “which Europe?” is attention grabbing but insipid.

And we are not. We cannot be. I’ll be attacked for this analogy, but screw it. It’s like our Chinese food. Aint the same. Couldn’t be the same if we tried.

You put any idea through the churn of politics and culture and it’s going to come out different. Waxman is distinctly different from any European plan. Europe actually has some pro-nuclear chunks, a very forward looking fusion development program, and is upping like 260% or so their funding for nuclear energy. They must be adopting a distinctly “American” plan then.

So far, nothing Obama has proposed is a “distinctly American” solution.

Cap-and-trade is the same nonsense that has failed to produce significant reductions in greenhouse gases in Europe. An “American” solution would be a combination of a carbon tax (of which Milton Friedman would have approved) and expanded nuclear power.

The health care reform package is (as every left-winger + ottovbs well knows) a steppingstone toward the eventual dismantlement of the private health insurance market and its replacement by single-payer. And single-payer is exactly what they have in European nations like France.

Don’t forget, I read the left-wing blogs too. And over there, they look down on America for its alleged “backwardness” and “primitivism,” look longingly at the “civilized” societies of Canada and Europe, and can’t wait for America to “catch up” to those other nations.

That’s fallacy. His end goal isn’t to turn us into Europe. I don’t think he could even if that was his goal–and no ones ever heard him utter it. It’s to fix problems that are affecting America–that (because of our society, culture, politics, population, etc.) are going to require a distinctly American solution.

Whether or not the end solution is effective FOR AMERICA is what is up for debate, not whether we’re turning into Europe, and which part. This is just a thinly veiled version of the socialism diatribe.

“And if you do something antisocial, you can be flogged.”

(*THUMBS UP*)

BILL

………Like spitting gum on the sidewalk…..I’m not kidding……How Sinz longs for the good old days….That anyone can claim to be a democratic (small c) American and want this country to look remotely like Singapore which is a tiny city state with two ethnic groups, run by a self perpetuating conservative oligarchy, is fairly amazing but that unfortunately is the prevalent authoritarian mindset in the GOP today.

They run a tight ship over there.

They have a free market; in some ways, freer than America’s markets.

And if you do something antisocial, you can be flogged.

…….I’m sure most Americans will interested to learn that that despite the wide disparities in efficiency and economic performance amongst European countries (and I’ve lived in two and visited most of the others) the models that we are certain to follow are Greece and Italy. Not Sweden which has the highest tax rates in Europe; not Britain which has probably the most socialized system of medicine; not France whose public sector employment levels are about the same as Italy and whose retirement packages are even more generous; not Germany where the institutional role and power of the trade unions is probably greater than in any country in Europe; not the Netherlands that has the most liberal laws on drugs and women’s abortion rights. No we because of our incompetence and idleness are destined to look like…….Greece! Elsewhere on this Blog David Frum bemoans exaggeration and hysteria…..well join the club Mr Linardatos. And btw in about a month I’m going to wallow in the squalor and inefficiencies of Italy for three weeks which has the misfortune to governed by the “conservative” administration of Signor Berlusconi. Unfortunately he’s unlikely to invite me to one his parties with the scantily clad nymphets.