[ews]

The US rarely looks into how other countries solve problems. (i.e. Universal Healthcare, High Speed Trains and so), this is the sad part of "American Exceptionalism"

[rayiner]

Those are two odd examples. The Affordable Care Act is similar to the Netherlands health insurance system: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2011/lessons-abroad-du... (“These similarities are not entirely coincidental. American public officials, health industry leaders, and scholars made frequent visits to the Netherlands in the run-up to the debate over U.S. health care reform, borrowing ideas and, on occasion, citing the Dutch system as a model for what the U.S. might achieve.”).

As to rail, both the first-gen and second-gen Acela is based on the French TGV.

[redczar]

The U.S. has a pitiful amount of high speed rail. It serves no point to mention that this pitiful amount of high speed rail is based off of TGV.

The comparison to the Dutch healthcare system is not apt. While the Heritage foundation may used ideas from the Dutch system our system is quite a bit more Byzantine and inefficient. We spend twice as much per capita on healthcare and have worse outcomes and fewer people covered. Our citizens have far more per capita medical debt than the Dutch.

We didn’t really implement the Dutch system and we didn’t really learn from the French how to build and maintain high speed rail. Saying we learned healthcare from the Dutch because we have doctors like they do makes as much sense as your argument.

[Aeolun]

> The Affordable Care Act is similar to the Netherlands health insurance systemh

> The average Obamacare plan costs $483 monthly for a 30-year-old, $544 for a 40-year-old and $760 for a 50-year-old.

> The bronze plan covers 60% of the costs associated with care.

I feel like they missed the most important parts of the Dutch health insurance system…

[seanmcdirmid]

I thought the ACA was based on the Swiss system of mandatory insurance? The heritage foundation copied the Swiss, Romney took that proposal to Mass, and Obama thought going with a Conservative initiated plan would make it more bipartisan (it didn’t, but mainly because republicans hated Obama).

[nozzlegear]

A less cynical framing is that the US is a much different culture from European countries, and is massively larger in scale. Depending on the problem, some of their solutions simply can't or don't apply.

[rafabulsing]

The scale argument is thrown around a lot as a justification for why the US couldn't possibly implement universal healthcare. The elephant in the room that I'm always surprises at how rarely it's mentioned in these discussions is Brazil, which is a huge country of comparable size (both territory and population wise), and it manages to make UHC work even though it's also a much poorer country.

It's not perfect by any means, but it's definitely much better than nothing. So the US should absolutely be able to at the very least match that, but really most likely it should be able to do much better. That it doesn't is very much a choice.

[yboris]

I got a Master's Degree in Education and spent 2 years in Educational Psychology Ph.D. program and absolutely 0 time was spent looking at how other countries do education.

It's baffling how despite numerous other countries outperforming the US in educational outcomes we do not even look at other approaches!

[freehorse]

Which part here exactly cannot work in the US? I am talking about brushing one's teeth with toothpaste containing fluoride, which sounds as plain simple as possible to me. Is it regular brushing teeth that fails in the US for cultural reasons? Fluoride in the toothpaste? Supervising kids while brushing their teeth to make sure they do not swallow? It is an honest question.

[FireBeyond]

This is exactly the framing. "What worked there can't work here", whether it's firearm control, socialized medicine or education, whatever.

We're either bigger, or denser, or less dense, or ... essentially whatever suits the argument.

[DeepYogurt]

Scale is a scapegoat. Take the US region by region and you can find analogs around the world.

[_heimdall]

There shouldn't be a scale issue with regards to fluoride in the water. It is either scientifically shown to be beneficial or it isn't, scale and geography likely have nothing to do with it.

[hayst4ck]

You're not wrong in that our culture is different, but that cultural difference is chiefly a self fulfilling prophecy of "the government can't do it," promoted by billionaire owned media, so that those same billionaires can run for-profit industries like healthcare and transportation.

The cultural difference is that our rich people are too rich, our media is too centralized, and none of those in power want to enrich and empower the country, when they could enrich and empower themselves.

[panick21_]

This is the excuse all American use about literally every single issue anytime anybody points out that other do things better. Most often without actually having thought about it beyond 'muhuhu US BIGGG! USA! USA! USA!'.

If you want to make that argument, actually make it, because if you try, 99% of the time its not actually true, its simply ignorance.

[kelnos]

I feel like this always comes up in these sorts of arguments, that the US is so unique that solutions that work elsewhere can't work here. And yet this point is always hand-waved in, without and specifics discussed, and is just presented as a given.

I really don't buy it, at least not as a general statement.

[Aeolun]

This argument works fine for high-speed rail, not so well for insurance and healthcare.

[thowawatp302]

Why is it less cynical, what does the scale of the US have to do with it?

[jimt1234]

When I was a kid the schools taught us the metric system, telling us it was the world standard, and would become the standard is the US by the time I was an adult. That was over 40 years ago. And that pretty much sums it all up.

[tastyfreeze]

The US legally switched to metric when England did. It is taught in all schools and used for international trade. But, just like in England there is a mix of imperial and metric units used domestically. If you dont travel internationally, like many Americans, there is little need to use metric. Another generation and there won't be many people left in the US that didn't at least learn metric.

[Aeolun]

At least they were right about one thing. It definitely is the world standard.

[bryanrasmussen]

see that proves it - the U.S can't adopt the metric system, it's too big, you don't want to have to break out the megameters! /s