Well,each to their own. The US has proved spectacularly inept in a number of areas (healthcare, obesity, guns and education) and the causes are indeed blindingly obvious to anyone who is not an American.
[1]https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
The US had a highly functional, cost effective healthcare system until the early 1990s, when costs began to soar. In fact it still has the best hospitals and doctors in the world to this day, along with the best technology and best drugs. The US also has by far the most innovative healthcare tech and pharma industries.
The US did not have an obesity problem until the last 20 or 30 years.
The US still has by far the best universities on earth. There isn't even a close second. Make a list of the top 20 universities and the US will take 17 of those slots. It had a tremendous public education system, again, until about 20 years ago. And even now, half the country still does have an excellent public education system.
If the US is so inept at education, how come US universities stand so far above the rest of the world, and have for decades? Quick, name five universities of equal quality to Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton - anywhere on earth, eg: Sweden, Switzerland, Norway.
1 Obesity-apparently not a problem because it didn't exist 30- years ago.
That, I find hard to believe if I remember my first trip to the US in the late 1980s and the free food restaurants in Las Vegas.
2 Healthcare -an obvious disaster, due to lack of access and the lifestyle of a large part of the population. Oh, it will also bankrupt the country without major reforms.
3 The universities-rankings are based on research, which in turn are based on buying in talent.Don't kid yourself that they reflect the quality of undergraduates that are turned out or the population as a whole.
4 As for guns-no need to bother with that one.
In fact the US did not have an obesity problem in the 1980s. Between 1980 and 2000, the obesity rate doubled among adults in the US, per the CDC. What I originally said is accurate and easy to prove.
The obvious point, is that America has only become "inept" in the last 20 to 25 years on obesity. It's a very recent problem. It can be reversed and solved as quickly as it become a problem. I'd argue that peak obesity has already occurred, the causes have almost all been clearly identified, and over the next 20 years Americans will get less obese measured by every five years that go by.
2) Total healthcare costs stopped increasing several years ago. In fact it's more likely that healthcare costs as a % of GDP and income will decline for the next 20 years. It's not going to bankrupt the country without major reforms. Not even remotely close. The US has among the highest disposable income levels in the world, healthcare expenses are a very manageable problem even at these elevated cost levels.
Americans do not have a healthcare access problem. In fact Americans are the most over-doctored, over-tested, over-treated people on earth, and it's a huge contributing factor for why Americans spend so much on healthcare. Americans consume more healthcare services than any other people. Nearly 90% of Americans have health coverage now, and the majority of those in the 10% that do not, choose not to. The poor in America have had complete coverage for a very long time, via state medicaid, among a dozen other programs.
Saying something is so, does not prove it. If you're going to make outlandish claims (the US will be bankrupted by healthcare costs), you should back them up.
3) The universities in the US outrank their peers in other countries across the board on a direct comparison basis (top vs top, middle vs middle). It's embarrassing how far ahead the US has been for the last 40 years. It's universally accepted that the US has by far the best universities. There's no debate to be had here, at all.
Take your ludicrous assertion that healthcare costs will decline as a % of GDP over the next 20 years.
You are on another planet to the rest of us.
We're already at a point where healthcare costs as a % of GDP will begin declining. With the expansion of the ACA, the US Government has begun doing what every country in Europe does: squeezing unnecessary costs out of healthcare any way they can.
You claimed healthcare costs would bankrupt the US without reforms. Now let's see you prove what you said, instead of relying on ad hominem attacks in place of actual data points.
Per capita healthcare expenditure growth has been falling for about 12 years now, and is down to low single digits: http://i.imgur.com/5ARcJ1s.jpg
"Medical Costs Register First Decline Since 1970s" http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/06/18/medical-costs-regi...
"CBO: Declining Health Care Costs Will Lower US Budget Deficit" http://www.voanews.com/content/us-cbo-estimates-slightly-low...
"Republicans Hurt By Slowing Costs in Health Care In the 2014 election, Democrats seize on opportunity to talk about Medicare." http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/09/26/republicans-h...
Pretty much everything you have written is wrong-you can check out your claim on future healthcare spending with what everyone else thinks.
The US has very poor healthcare results across the board, exept in one medium-size illness, cancer. Where the US does slightly better, untill you factor in that the short US lifespan, and how much younger US cancer patients are on average. And it would be very peculiar indeed if the country with the best hspitals, doctors and tech should also be the one with the shortest lifespan, years in good health, infoant mortality, amendable mortality, amternal mortality, etc, etc, etc.
The bottom line is the US system costs them most and has very bad results.
US healthcare and pharma industries are not all that innovative, have a look at number of patents brought to market. he US also scores very low on number of nobel prizes per head.
Which brings US to Universiteis. US and UK univeristies like Cambridge, Harward, UMIST, Iperial, etc are undoubtedly good...but only looks dominant when you do the by-paper measuring which only counts papers published in english. Count non-english papers and the field widens. Count Nobels, and the US brings up the rear.