Reply #26: The costs are higher than here because we don't have those things here.

[Yollam]

And as for health care, the US spends tenfold what other countries spend, we only cover 50~60% of the people, and we get inferior care.

For example, in Japan in 2000, I paid $70/mo for my health insurance for a family of 4, and my emplyer matched that amount. Office visits were $5. Prescriptions were $5. I couldd go to my doctor's office anytime without an appointment, and seldom had to wait more than 20 minutes. The waits were somewhat longer at the hospital, but still better than here. Getting a referral to see a specialist was much less paperwork intensive than it is here with an HMO, etc. etc. etc. And European countries' systems are consistent with that. To my knowledge, only the US has a "health care" system that is fundamentally set up as a huge con game on the consumer, at almost every level.


And although Europe may spend a bit more in total on transit, etc., I'm pretty sure that on a per user basis, they are much more efficient than we are. Most of our cities have little or no rail service and lousy bus systems that a lot of snobbish or paranoid whites won't ride because they think it's "for minorities".

In Japan and Europe, a lot of people have cars, but they don't drive them to work every day. They use transit to go to work, and the car for shopping or weekend jaunts. And driving the car 1/4 mile to the convenience store would seem obscene...