BristolUK

Andy Borowitz is the New York Times best-selling author of “The 50 Funniest American Writers,” and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes the Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news, for newyorker.com.

scrubbedexpat091

Danny B

This tweet did not age well

Tangram

I'd read Congress were exempt from the bill, but haven't read into it too much so may be wrong

thistlehollyberry

I was listening to a Trump supporter who was excited about the repeal of Obamacare. When he was reminded that he was a recipient of the Affordable Care Act he said that was different - he didn't realize that they were one and the same. The look on his face was priceless.

dave_j

When I was young, the most frequently used description of americans from acquaintances who had visited america was 'generosity'.

Of course this was many years ago when the USA had emerged from the war as the only superpower and business was booming.

It seems strange that since those days, little has been done to encourage the US to do what nations should do and that's care for those citizens at the bottom of the heap.

I'm older now and although some would dispute this I think I'm also a little wiser.
I no longer associate the term 'generosity' with the average american voter. I realise more people voted for Clinton than Trump but the 'Blue Wall' crumbled just when it was needed most. The vast sums of money sloshing about in the health care providing system in the US has ensured that the much flawed Obamacare has been put into intensive care. It may yet survive but the vicious malaise it suffers from is eating away at it from the inside.

It seems that the once vaunted generous well heeled americans just can't bring themselves to subsidise health care for those fellow citizens who can't afford it and even though the rich are getting richer enough apparently is never enough and Obamacare is to be sacrificed on the altar of the Tax Cut.

I used to comfort myself when I paid my taxes with the notion that you had to have earned it to pay it. It seems now in the US that others have to suffer so that you can keep a little more.

Mr and Mrs American can only hope that fear of defeat in the next election cycle will introduce a degree of self reflection when the bill reaches the senate.

scilly

It seems that it never has been part of the American psyche to take care of those who can't afford to do it themselves.

I found when we lived down there, albeit it was almost 50 years ago, that the prevailing attitude seemed to be that it was everyone's responsibility to take care of themselves. If you didn't earn enough money, that was your fault, and hard lines when you got old.

dave_j

I can understand a mindset that praises self reliance but in the case of the US self reliance is trumped by Big Business.

The american health system has exploited this mindset for decades to ensure that health provision has become the most expensive in the modern world. It now owns the Republican Party and probably a number of Democrats as well. The really difficult question to answer is why they continue to dupe the average voter. Are these voters really that simple minded? Apparently so.

BristolUK

That sounds so daft I had to google to see how common that might be and I found a poll from February. A whopping 17% believed the two names meant different things and another 18% weren't sure.
That's over a third believe they are different or think they might be.

Worst of all as that this was most pronounced among peiople most likely to be affected by the repeal.

And way after that too. I found it on trips to Canada in 75 and the US in 78. Get introduced to someone and immediately there's an invite to a weekend barbecue.

I think it is still that way but I think North Americans see generosity/friendliness as something different, perhaps because it's a personal choice rather than a regulated one - even though there's an element of choice in the regulated one.

You know, they'll still rally round for a cause, but object to their tax dollars (still don't understand that expression) removing or reducing the need for that cause in the first place.

An excellent summary. Plus a few insults about laziness thrown in.

Shard

It's just mindset, isn't it. Jimmy Kimmel's monologue this week, and the attendant media support are steps toward changing that mindset. I think they will get there, eventually, maybe even soon. One positive from globalisation is that we are all learning and hearing how other countries do things, and over time "best practices" are being adopted.

Almost Canadian

I was reading this on the way in to work this morning:

Obamacare v Republican plan

Are the proposed changes really as large as both sides of the argument would have us believe?

Almost Canadian

Do you really believe that Americans will ever allow an increase in their taxes to funds European style healthcare?

Shard

They were on that track. What's happening now are just a few bumps.

MarkG

Many of the Americans I know wish they could buy cheap insurance that just covered catastrophic illness. But Obamacare required them to buy 'insurance' for everything else, too. And with a deductible of thousands of dollars, so they couldn't even afford to use it.

Insurance is the problem with American healthcare, because it's pushed the cost way above what normal people can afford to pay out of their pockets. No-one would be paying $200,000 for a drug that's available in Mexico for $200 if they didn't have insurance.

Either way, it's pretty much irrelevant. The healthcare business is on the brink of being revolutionized by technology that will make the whole debate moot.

Shard

What technology is that?