So you'd consider our highway system and military to be failures? Because they're the best in the world. Our post office runs efficiently as hell, do you know any private companies that will take a letter 2000 miles and deliver it by hand for less than a buck?
I wouldn't know how to compare us to other countries, I've never been anywhere else. . . so I'm not going to pretend.
But what makes you feel we have *the best* roadways as a nation? Not to forget that the states hold the biggest responsibility and cost for road-care and maintenance, not the federal government. . .so a broad sweeping statement won't work.
Per my state - we have some of the worst roads in the country, so that chime falls on deaf ears.
Our military is the best in the world? Is it really?
Well - this depends on who you talk to and what you're talking about. Quality of military is a HUGE variety of issues all jumbled together - I refuse to pretend that we dominate in every aspect of this when we blatantly don't.
My husband be pissed: but some aspects of our military is wretched beyond belief and fails to function as it should. Everything from our paperwork system to efficiency in the field, tactics and spending practices and even medical-care can be analyzed and judged and compared to others - so how you can fairly assess that we're the best is beyond me.
Medical care, by the way, in the military is atrocious. Remember Walter Reed? That was a problem that solely stemmed from the government itself. This gem that you worship and feel is stellar is quite tarnished and incapable when it comes to the things that matter.
And our post office? Our post office is so efficient that it's going bankrupt and having to close branches just to continue to function.
The overlooked thing about the government (and the core problem of all government-run failures) is that apparently it can run up a HUGE bill and payroll - and then just tax us and borrow from other countries when it overdraws. Basically, it has no spending limit - no one to cut off the tap when they've topped off. So they can spend, spend, spend - without having to answer to anyway.
Now, I don't consider that to be efficient, ideal business practice or smart - I think that's stupidity at it's finest. To which you say it's "the best" - so :shrug: whatever.
Health care? Every country that has adopted UHC has found it to be less expensive with better outcomes. Every time. If that's not good evidence, I don't know what is. There are countries with UHC that deliver their medicine entirely through private insurance and private practitioners and still do better than we do. There are others that go full-fledged socialized medicine, and they do better too. Then there are lots of countries with a system that is in between. They do better than we do.
Certain approaches might work in other countries - but will it work in ours? Our government is not like other governments - we are a government by proxy, unlike the UK and others which are a direct government: the government IS the power over all transportation, airways, utilities and so on. So - giving our government MORE responsibility - can it function and maintain control and balance?
I think it's proven time and time that it cannot. It cannot succeed because it refuses to control it's own spending and asses problems before it erupts and collapses, bringing everyone down with it.
To not see the trend is to be blind.
That's exactly what I'm saying to you - the government is in control of a vast number of things, all of which are plagued with problems and riddled with holes that need fixing. . . yet you're looking at these same things and being overly optimistic - when the evidence proves that if it's in the government's hands it's going to get ruined because partisan politics will rule and customer service and propriety will be put aside.