why is the USA miles behind the rest of the world in this regard?
Because if something has even the hint of socialism, the discussion is considered over. It's why the U. S. doesn't have universal health care.
Because if something has even the hint of socialism, the discussion is considered over. It's why the U. S. doesn't have universal health care.
It is a complex issue and the socialism-word boogeyman isn't all there is to it--there is more than just the vocab.
From my anecdotal experience, I can say it isn't so much the socialism that tends to bother people, but the part where socialism is given to what are considered undeserving people. Those people might be immigrants that are perceived (incorrectly or correctly) of getting an unfair share of schooling and medical services. Those people might play off the older concept of the Welfare Queen. It varies from person to person that I speak to, but very few (zero?) people have told me they're against things like health care for all without also bringing up those parts as a con to why it either can't work, or shouldn't be implemented.
(then after all that, you still have regular politics to hurdle)
But, yeah, I'll cop to vastly over-simplifying.
The people who disagreed did so not because they necessarily disagree with universal health care, but because they thought it was unfair that they had to spend their hard earned money to subsidise people who they view as freeloaders.
I don't have the details on hand, but Robert Putnam (Political science, Harvard) did a study about Americas breakdown in civil engagement that speaks to this point quite a bit.
Here's an article that talks about it: http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...
I bet American Express has a program that looks an awful lot like universal coverage for their employees.
That means either, your value is low enough that you can be gone for that long without your company missing you OR that they have to pay somebody else to fill in for you with the knowledge that they'll be let go once you get back. Depending on what kind of work you do, this is no small task.
The types of companies who can afford to do this type of thing essentially boil down to subscription style, giant companies where the absence of any employee won't really effect anything from a business or customer standpoint...who also happen to be rolling in money.
If they're willing and able to provide that benefit...GREAT!
But different businesses provide significantly different cash flow models. Different businesses can't have their valuable employees AWOL for 52 weeks while paying them and somebody else to fill in for them at a higher rate.
You have to be in a money printing market position to even think about something like that.
I don't believe they do, so that makes it fairly irrelevant to the conversation about universal health care.