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Let's also not forget Iceland, who has cradle to grave socialism and a strict no-immigration policy, yet is entirely and utterly broke as a nation.
Correlation does not imply causation and I'm sure you know that Iceland being broke has everything to do with their banks being too big and not because of their policies. Implying that they are somewhow related is just plain dishonest.
Correlation does not imply causation and I'm sure you know that Iceland being broke has everything to do with their banks being too big and not because of their policies. Implying that they are somewhow related is just plain dishonest.
To be fair, the OP implied causation between Socialized Medicine and happiness.
While browsing the Forbes picks for happiest countries, I found it just as easy to assume a correlation that they are happy because they have cute/hot/smart/fun loving woman. Evidence supplied by the pictures provided beside the captions. Hey I can vouch for Canada in that regard.
I think the list is probably valid. Each nation is going to have its share of happy people vs unhappy ones. However, one thing you will find with each coutnry listed is that the Per Capita income is high for all the nations sampled. They also have smaller populations which are easier to manage. They have strong economies and are developed technologically. They also have a good seperation of church and state and solid charters of rights and freedoms. In all cases, the individual liberties are high and the citizens in general are more apt to live in harmony. I suspect life expectancy is very high in all listed as well.
Correlation does not imply causation and I'm sure you know that Iceland being broke has everything to do with their banks being too big and not because of their policies. Implying that they are somewhow related is just plain dishonest.
The above is a site of the countries that have the happiest population in the world. I believe every one have socialized medicine.
I wonder why that is?????????????????????????????/
Is an interesting point you make about all of these places have socialized medicine. The goodness or poorness of any national scheme depends on HOW it is implemented, not IF it is implemented. IMO, it is a flat out necessity that we get to a workable national scheme asap, it's the getting there that will be a political horror, worse than what we saw when the Clintons tried to do it.
Looking at the American population, it is ridiculous to think that people should be left to themselves to select health insurance from among hundreds of firms that offer it. Some could do it, but most people would quickly be overwhelmed. It's insane for the naysayers to think that 200M+ adult Americans should become experts in all the nuances of hundreds of competing plans, just to pick a plan, what a huge waste of everyone's time. Few have the ability to keep all the data in their heads or to know what's important or how to read the fine print. I expect many of the plans will be fly by nights offering low prices then skipping out with the premiums, denying claims, etc, they'll be abuses beyond belief, worse than now.
Back to why the folks are happy... IMO, they don't have to go through all the nonsense of worrying about having health care and they don't have to try and sort out all of the plans on their own. They know they pay higher taxes for it, but we pay for it too, and if we added up what we spend on taxes plus health care, then our costs begin to approach their's in some cases.
Folks in many of those ten countries also pay taxes to support great public transit, and we add the cost of our auto's into the cost of taxes and health care, then we really start getting close to their level of taxes in some cases. Yet we're sold a bill of goods, a myth, that we're all a bunch of rugged cowboy individualists who don't want or need government to do anything for us beyond national defense.
The vested interests in health care will fight tooth and nail to protect their huge bloated profits and they don't care how many people die from not having any care.
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