The Swiss had a referendum for universal health care 1996 that barely passed (fiercely fought between the right and left) but doesn't have an age adjustable premium so it puts a heavier burden on young adults than ACA. Like ACA, the policies are purchased through private insurance companies, is subsidized by the government depending on income and family size, it doesn't cover 100% of the medical costs, and it took a while to get everyone covered. The Swiss can also purchase private insurance supplemental plans to cover what is not covered under the basic policy.

When the Swiss plan was implemented, medical costs were out of control much like the US but over the past 18 years, costs as a percentage of GDP are pretty close to costs for most north European countries. As you can see in the following article, the Swiss like their system and recently rejected a single payer system. So a good system can be created without single payer.

Switzerland rejects single-payer, will keep its own version of Obamacare - The Washington Post

'there are two areas in the US economy that appear to be getting too much money, thus stifling growth in other areas. One is healthcare and the other is higher education. Costs should be controlled and nipped in the bud. However, we would need a functioning government for that, not one that has legislators having their palms greased at every opportunity. '

Totally agree.
I got a call this evening from a young man asking me to give a $365 donation to my kid's university. I'm paying $20 000 a year for this education- plus nickled and dimed at every turn, tons of hidden costs- and they have the audacity to call and ask for more as 'charity' and the young man's script was 'it's parents getting involved in their family future'. The head of the university is earning millions! what does he care about my family future- my kid could be indebt to age 50 for all he cares!

I think there's an element of greed, nothing is ever enough, but it affects us all in the end. I no longer want to give to anything- if you do the only guarantee is there will be many more requests for giving more.

And having heard what the seniors think of my generation struggling with healthcare costs, ie. tough, and as one friend put it with great empathy 'we're doing ok'! politically do I care much any more if the right-wing get into power and curtail medicare?

I don't think it's Polyanna-ish to want to make a better world, but I've already left one country because of a pathetic government attempt to over-tax us ( IR35 ) and now I'm faced with similar unfairness and an indifferent unresponsive government here too. It does leave me questioning the level of honor of any politician.

The President strutting around at SOTU after the healthcare fiasco was frankly sickening, a little humility wouldn't be amiss. And the politics- virtually no real comment about the either incompetence or dishonesty or waste bordering on fraudulent about the ACA rollout, yet a whole political movement dedicated to trying to prove the President had no US birth certificate?

I would have had Elizabeth Warren as next President from her seeming understanding of issues facing us all and the intelligence of her writing. In one of her books she mentions Hilary Clinton getting into power and instead of still supporting Warren's position as promised she did an about-turn for some political reason. Well guess who doesn't answer her mail now since becoming senator and presidential sycophant in her turn.

My son told me recently 'why vote? They're all the same. The big companies run the world now mum'.

I don't resent the taxes I've paid where they've helped other people, I do resent the generation in the UK who retired at 50 and drained the system, I resent the Blair administration which didn't have the balls to go after the rich and super-rich so went after the middle classes, and I do resent anyone who doesn't make an attempt at a living and chooses long-term dependency or other thoughtless actions which mean someone else in an emergency can't find the resources meant to be there for them.

Still don't think I'd milk the system though, there's something unethical about taking advantage, something inherently noble about trying to be decent and hard-working and having integrity.

Just give me a break once in a while, the greedy, that's all I ask!

OnwardandUpward, while many of your points have a lot of merit, you seem to be buying into the ruling classes "divide and conquer" strategy. For instance, I'm aged 64 and soon to become a Medicare recipient. So this paragraph of yours,

Is liable to make me say, "she's my political enemy, I'll discount everything she says."

Blair and Obama at least did something, yet they are the ones who get it in the neck.

@robin1234
Precisely my point. Whilst we're all distractedly squabbling about who gets the biggest piece someone just made off with the whole pie!

Sorry I should clarify. I only meant that certain trends couldn't carry on forever. For example healthcare and higher education costs rising on the same trajectory along with stagnating wages. It's unsustainable. While people are paying over inflated prices for those two things they will buy less cars, homes and everything else that keeps the economy going If the masses are not thrown a few bones by their government the electorate may find a third party to vote for. Or simply demand change. I'm not necessarily thinking bloody revolution. I meant that most people will do anything else to avoid that.

@Mrs Danvers
I couldn't quite bring myself to vote Republican here in Texas recently- the republicans in TX have quite a repressive agenda of their own about controlling people's personal lives that I can't stomach, and most people seem unaware of, but there was nothing else to vote for, I ended in doing a protest libertarian ticket...hardly revolutionary action!

I don't feel very represented any more to be honest, not helped when you write to your politicians and get a pro-forma 'ain't I great' letter in response.

You could call the Occupy Wall Street as an attempt at "popular action" or uprising (at a stretch). But not with much success.

Sometimes I think there's a gulf between the media presentation of the rest of the world we can't see/experience and what is actually going on. Like when you hear reports of say shootings at a nursery school. This is very frightening, and the normal person will worry about the possibility locally, even if that chance is vanishingly remote.

According to evolutionary behaviourists, we're programmed to assess the probability of dangerous events based on their occurrence in the 80-100 people hunter-gatherer groupings that represented all the people an early human would likely ever get to know. If someone was eaten by a lion recently, the danger was pretty high.

The media today bombards us with the results of daily occurrences across hundreds of millions of people, but we're not able to get a grip on what that means for us. Intellectually perhaps we can, but not emotionally. So we worry.

We hear about all kinds of problems happening every day in the country (students with crushing uni debt, health care costs causing bankruptcy, even, as JAJ likes to tell us, the occasional tax scofflaw nabbed by the IRS). But we find it hard to get a real perspective on how widespread these problems actually are.

Then you have your own personal experiences in your town. Here there are students in two colleges going about their daily routine, the restaurants and bars hum in the evening, the high school seems quite good, mostly law and order prevail. People you see strolling in the parks with young children look happy. Many, I assume, will be illegal Mexican immigrants (this is SoCal after all), but they seem quite happy.

On Sundays the park fills up with large extended Hispanic families having a picnic and day long family party. There may be 20 or 30 such family groupings on any given warm weekend. The people look happy, though I'm sure work is hard and budgets are tight. They may just be earning the minimum wage.

Anyway, all that simply to say, sometimes you have to discount the doom and gloom merchants and measure your own direct experience. Of course that cuts both ways, too. You may have been robbed, mugged, had your house burnt down, etc. from which you will deduce that the world is going to hell in a handcart.

Yet, by and large, if Occupy Wall Street didn't resonate with the population at large, and since, by definition, most people are not in the 1%, maybe it's because life isn't as bad as all that for the great majority of the 99%.

+1

Hi Al8ion.

I did want to say thanks for your post. I do realize the media exaggerates things. However I am one of those people who does have a child of the 60k bachelor degree age. I did just pay a $500 emergency room bill on cleaning and suturing same child's foot. I am a nurse and see people who are still underinsured somewhat. My bills have been increasing at a faster rate than my paycheck so I didn't read all this in newspapers to form my outlook.

I do understand where you were coming from. I'm afraid it wasn't talking to me though.

Around summer 2016 Mrs H will be leaving teaching to join my company.
We'll lose the excellent cover she had available with her job so at that point we need to sign up.

Just checked the costs via Covered California.

Ranges from @ $700 Bronze to @ $1200 Platinum however I don't really know what all this entails and how our experiences will be compared to what we enjoy just now.

2 years well a lot could change.

Unless you are sick all the time how could you compare? To relate to another thread you get your hair cut regularly and have a comparison point.

I have not seen a Doctor in years and do not want to

Are you still planning on moving east though?

Totally agree. My impression is that the level of corruption is increasing. Couldbe that this impression is enhanced by no economic growth.

Obviously not a US issue. Just look at the EU. Economies flat but it is taking a bigger and bigger cut of what is there.

Mathematically it has to change at some point. History suggests usually does with a bang but difficult to see the direct comparison.

BBChad on their web site a tool that you could put in your DOB and it would produce a raft of stats showing how things had changed.

Just does not seem possible for a similar progression.