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Comment by curt | Hacker News Reader

Exactly, the "poor" in the United States have it better than the middle class in Europe. This is from an article today,

"...the typical household considered "poor" by census officials has a car and air conditioning. For entertainment, the household has cable or satellite TV, two color televisions, a DVD player and a VCR. If children (especially boys) are in the home, they have a video game system such as Xbox or PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household has the ordinary conveniences: refrigerator, oven, stove, microwave.

Half the poor now have a personal computer. A third have a widescreen TV (plasma or LCD); a quarter have a digital video recorder such as TiVo."

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Well, of course, as one would expect the poor to take out hugely unfair debt agreements to load up their small houses in bad neighbourds with all the electronic gear they can muster for as much entertainment as they can barely afford to have.

They do not, unlike the (European and American) middle class take foreign holidays, drive foreign cars, take trips to the movies, go to theme parks, go on school trips, shop at nice places, eat healithly, etc...just because they have a bunch of cheap electronics crap stuffed inside their homes it does not make them rich.

Seriously, what do you think life is like for the European middle class? In rich Europe, it's extremely comfortable.

> They do not, unlike the (European and American) middle class take foreign holidays, drive foreign cars, take trips to the movies, go to theme parks, go on school trips, shop at nice places, eat healithly, etc...just because they have a bunch of cheap electronics crap stuffed inside their homes it does not make them rich.

Actually, they do, apart possibly from take foreign holidays, and even that's a suspect difference. Remember, they that they live in the US, so visiting Texas from CA, which they do, is comparable to visiting Italy from the UK.

I'll admit that "poor" is a tricky thing to define but pointing out the possession of random consumer electronics doesn't demonstrate that a household is NOT really "poor".

The presence of a social safety net, meaningful employment, food security, quality education, access to health care and the ability to save for the future are vastly more important considerations for determining poverty.

European living standards are different, but quite high if you ignore silly stuff like sq footage and consumer electronics and instead focus on real things that matter like healthcare and education.

> European living standards are different, but quite high if you ignore silly stuff like sq footage and consumer electronics and instead focus on real things that matter like healthcare and education.

US poor have free healthcare and education. (Actually, everyone does.)

The free healthcare or education isn't unlimited in the US, but it isn't free&unlimited anywhere.

I have free healthcare? So why am I still paying every time I go to the doctor?

> I have free healthcare? So why am I still paying every time I go to the doctor?

Some combination of (1) Lack of poverty, (2) you don't like the free care, (3) you don't know what's available.

Are you poor? If so, medicaid is available (or the state equivalent).

Are you a child? If so, there's a program whose name I forget.

And, there's also the local county hospital.

That said, you may prefer the care that you get by paying, but your choice doesn't imply that you couldn't get free healthcare.

Most of those are not federal programs. And some of those are kinda flimsy, like even if I could convince a family member to pay my bill that doesn't mean "we have free healthcare in America."

> Most of those are not federal programs.

Huh? 2 (medicaid and the children's program) out of 3 are federal; that's most in my book (The state versions of mediad, such as MediCal, are state/federal partnerships.)

Besides, since every state (and territory) has them, why is it relevant whether they're state or federal?

> And some of those are kinda flimsy

Huh? No, they won't do everything that you could possibly want, but neither does any other healthcare system, anywhere in the in the world, govt paid or not.

If you want to argue about the specific things that they won't do, you get to do the relevant research, including on the programs that you think are acceptable.

> like even if I could convince a family member to pay

I'm not suggesting skipping out on a bill (although that's also an option if you can't pay).

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