It's actually a fun demo, that shows a fairly common difference between Europeans and Americans. The demo is mostly about comparing GDP, while HDI or something else more "human" is left as an exercise to the reader. If someone was doubting Americans only care about money, now you have some more evidence :)
This comment feels in bad faith. There are ~340 million Americans and you draw evidence about all of them from this one thing? It's not even an insight into its single American author. It was a quick weekend hack.
The purpose of the thing is to try to put things into perspective, like "Portugal is about the size of Indiana", or "California's economy is about the size of Germany". It compares three numbers, two of which are not money!
Yeah, money machine go brrrr is a great sign of "footprint", lets just ignore millenniums of inventions, technology and others things coming from Europe, before the US was even a colony. Texas GDP was $x millions last year, clearly larger footprint on the world :)
It's actually pretty fun and interesting the different bubbles we all live in, for better or worse.
This is actually the reason why I'm a proponent of the US Federal government doing far _far_ less. Things like Healthcare and other safety net things (along with most other things) should be done at the state level, and the the fact that European nations, which are near universally poorer than all US states, are able to do these things, are the proof that this would work.
I'm convinced that the federal government doing more and more things is the root cause if the increasing toxicity of American politics. The further removed a populace is from their representatives the less control they have and the worse they feel. Everything should always be done at the most local level that it is possible to do it. Some things have to be done at a relatively high level, but Americans have increasingly been jumping straight to "this is a job for the federal government" when very often state, or even city governments in some cases, would be perfectly capable.
We already do have universal health care for the most expensive groups to insure (lower income households and the elderly), and technically have it for everyone in that hospitals aren't allowed to deny life saving care to anyone regardless of their ability to pay (which is expensive, short sighted, and quite inadequate overall).
Adding the rest of the population to the existing public insurance system would not cost much financially, but it would be a political catastrophe for whatever party implemented it if it didn't go well.
In short, I don't think anyone seriously argues the US can't afford universal health care, but the real and perceived risk of change is seen as too great politically.
The American government spends an incredible amount on healthcare already. If it were competently administered, it would already be enough money to cover universal healthcare.
embedding-shape|2 months ago
evmar|2 months ago
The purpose of the thing is to try to put things into perspective, like "Portugal is about the size of Indiana", or "California's economy is about the size of Germany". It compares three numbers, two of which are not money!
jjmarr|2 months ago
nine_k|2 months ago
BTW the population figure for Czechia is NaN, for some reason,
evmar|2 months ago
(I guess Wikipedia and the UN call it "the Czech Republic" so my update also renamed it...)
sharkjacobs|2 months ago
It's not surprising per se but it does put things in perspective that Texas has a bigger footprint than every country in Europe.
nebula8804|2 months ago
You can place a state/country on top of another country and see the true size. Helps to make up for the improper sizing caused by map projections.
I use it to help my lovely dutch friends realize why I can't just bike to work. :)
embedding-shape|2 months ago
It's actually pretty fun and interesting the different bubbles we all live in, for better or worse.
belter|2 months ago
Maybe you can afford Universal Health Care after all...
MostlyStable|2 months ago
I'm convinced that the federal government doing more and more things is the root cause if the increasing toxicity of American politics. The further removed a populace is from their representatives the less control they have and the worse they feel. Everything should always be done at the most local level that it is possible to do it. Some things have to be done at a relatively high level, but Americans have increasingly been jumping straight to "this is a job for the federal government" when very often state, or even city governments in some cases, would be perfectly capable.
bpt3|2 months ago
Adding the rest of the population to the existing public insurance system would not cost much financially, but it would be a political catastrophe for whatever party implemented it if it didn't go well.
In short, I don't think anyone seriously argues the US can't afford universal health care, but the real and perceived risk of change is seen as too great politically.
mikkupikku|2 months ago
bluebarbet|2 months ago
skirge|2 months ago