Completely true, take everything I said and reverse it for Europe. But I'm referring to life in These United States, where we don't have health care, we don't have vacation, we don't have maternity leave, we have very little public transportation... ok, I'll just stop before I get out of control.
It's actually the exact opposite. You have more of a "my neighbors should pay for it" view. That's why you object to paying taxes so much. You want all the benefits of living in an advanced society, but you want someone else to pay for it.
This is simply observed by noting that most people, in both countries, actually work and pay taxes. Therefore, in Europe, most people are paying for both their own services and for those of people who can't afford it. That's an attitude of "I'll pay for my neighbor" not "my neighbor should pay".
Yes in the strictest sense of the word "we" have it. If my neighbor can't pay for it and everyone else refuses to pay for it, my neighbor doesn't have it. If my neighbors have health insurance but can't afford the copay so they have to let smaller problems become life threatening, they effectively don't have it.
It's like you are celebrating a system that didn't take much out of you to give seriously dehydrated people water while conveniently neglecting the result that giving them a bottle of water either made them destitute or prolonged their lives by a small amount. You also conveniently neglect that many first world nations manage to have universal healthcare and spend less per person than us. I will say this though, if you are rich there are very few better places to be for healthcare than America. Hoorah, what a great system; what a great quality of life for everyone!
It's not entirely clear that American healthcare is much better, even if you can afford it, unless you're talking about, like, stratospheric levels of wealth.
