America and Healthcare

A French co-worker recently asked me about the current debate in the US regarding healthcare.  He told me that the debate is something that the French just don’t understand.  He asked me to give him my opinion about what will happen.  “Not what you want to happen,” he said explicitly, but what I think would actually happen.

It is completely understandable why the French–as well as other nationalities–don’t understand the American debate about healthcare.  Yes, we are behind the times (being the only Western and industrialized country to not offer this benefit to all our citizens).   On the other hand, there is a logical reason for the difference between the US and the rest of the industrialized and health-care-toting world.  Countries like France, for example, have been homogenous in terms of people and especially culture for a long time.  Having  a benefit such as healthcare as a public good (available to all) is not only thought of as common, but it is also seriously taken for granted in places like France as well as other countries.   This is why the debate in America has caused so much confusion and criticism around the world.

The US has always been an immigrant country and thus we are completely made up of numerous and various cultures.  Most communities are left to their own devices; to live a lifestyle and follow traditions in whatever fashion they could desire.  While it is amazing that an uncountable number of communities could live together in harmony, there are also many drawbacks.  Comparably less public goods (when put next to another developed country) is one of these drawbacks.

The US has had a motto that has been commonly used (in various forms) since the colonists came across the Atlantic.  This is “to pull oneself up by one’s own bootstraps.”  America is a highly indepedent country, in the sense that the society revolves around the individual rather than the community.  Individual rights reign over community (or family) rights, which is completely different than most other countries around the world.

Applying this motto of independence to American communities whether it be by race, religion, or economic class, Americans have decided that people need to provide for themselves.  Because of the “Universal American Culture” the US government has failed to produce a “Universal Healthcare” for American citizens.

I am in no way trying to defend America’s current policy on healthcare, I am merely explaining how it has developed according to American identity.   I think that we are a wealthy enough nation to be providing key public goods to our people, and that it is an important part in nation-building.

Now, my opinion on what is ACTUALLY going to happen is grim at best.  I think what Obama is pushing for currently is a step in the right direction – but that’s just it.  Before Americans can swallow the idea of spending more of their individual wages on taxes to help communities of lower-class Americans in another state, we are going to have to start thinking of ourselves as a community.