It's just kinda mocking our energy issues without highlighting the positive solutions that are in work as well. How about all the health care systems that didn't collapse and still don't make people poor. Other countries here also make fun of Germany. They definitely don't serve as a good example for 'europe' in that sense.
Weird article, dunno
The article addresses health care. Did you have a rebuttal to its specific points?
> A traditional trump card for Western Europe has been the quality of its health-care systems. But the boasting here is not nearly as justified as it used to be.
> The pandemic revealed years of capital underinvestment in many of European health-care systems. Many Americans used to admire the UK’s National Health Service, but right now the whole system is ailing. There has been a labor and capital shortage, and a collapse of emergency health care services, which may be costing up to 500 excess (non-Covid) deaths a week. Similar problems exist throughout Europe, though they seem to be worst in the UK.
> The American hospital and health care system long has been good — too good — at making expensive, long-term investments in care and technology. Often this meant excess prices and not much of an improvement in basic care. But in the pandemic and post-pandemic environment, that feature of the system has kept US health care up and running. All that capital investment turns out to have been pretty useful in a major crisis.
Does it? All it says is how awesome and universal health care is in the US without going to any details. How about this for rebuttal:
- Insurance is tied to your job; usually in EU it's a % of your income. - Even with insurance, a medical emergency in the US can often be a financial catastrophe, specially if you have the wrong coverage; - Chronic disease is a massive burden in the US and insurances only pay a small part of it.
So yeah, it's getting better, but is it acceptable for those who don't earn 150k a year?
Sure health insurance is not cheap, however I also know that whoever feels I'll in this country is getting the help they need without money every standing in the way.
If I see a person feeling bad on the streets, homeless or not, I just call an ambulance and he is taken care of. There are no implications, human health, whoever's health, is still the highest good.
One reason Switzerland is so much safer than the US even thought we have nearly as much guns in private hands is because people get help when they need it.
What would you have to say about the author's contention that long-running American over-investment in health care kept the system up and running during the crisis, where European under-investment has led to excess deaths (especially in the UK, which the author claims has suffered 500 excess death/week because of this)?
I am not the biggest fan of how the euro zone works. However reality is there are no 'free riders' every piece of land is relevant for the whole puzzle. There is no one sided money rain for poor countries as some people seem to think.
Eurozone allows Germany to freeride as well. Germany makes use of relatively cheap euro, while other countries, who do drag down euro, can't access benefits of crappy state of their economy. And Germany's strong Russian-gas-powered economy keeps euro higher than it should be. Although now it's getting corrected.
Switzerland is a little bit of a special case in many regards.
The main reason Switzerland isn't it full panic mode yet as some neighbors are is because the average energy price rise is not so much compared to our average income. If ex. Germans have to pay €100 more it hits them at least 2-3 times as hard than the median Swiss. Euro is falling as well, so some things are actually just getting cheaper meanwhile.