At least no one, I mean no one has to get up in the morning and wonder about how to pay doctor or hospital bills or what will happen when they can work no more! Also, they need not go across the border to another country to buy their medicines like Seniors here in US going to Canada and Mexico. No one need to go to a hospital ER empty handed and expect care and treatment like here in US and let others pick up the tab. Your mention of mediocre care ends here pal.
The top 10 happiest countries in the world according OECD are all in Europe + Australia and Canada. Any surprise they all have nationalized health care or as Americans, rather right wing ignorants call it "Socialized Medicine"?
How can one be happy when one weighs twice the obese limit?
Religion
Do not let your heart envy sinners,
but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord.
There is surely a future hope for you,
and your hope will not be cut off.
Listen, my son, and be wise,
and set your heart on the right path:
Do not join those who drink too much wine
or gorge themselves on meat,
for drunkards and gluttons become poor,
and drowsiness clothes them in rags.
Why should your religious issue be my issue?
Why is it garbage?
by definition nationalized health care provided by the government, or more accurately, paid for by the taxpayers, is SOCIALIZED medicine. Just because you don't like the term, doesn't mean it isn't accurate.
and let's face, lazy people like socialism. They love the safety net that means that with next to no effort on their own part they are guaranteed the basics in life. Of course they are also guaranteed mediocrity as well, but those with no real goals in life are more than happy to trade the opportunity to excel for a safety net.
As for being "happy" sheep and cattle are usually quite content with their lives, right until they get whacked between the eyes with a sledge hammer.
At least no one, I mean no one has to get up in the morning and wonder about how to pay doctor or hospital bills or what will happen when they can work no more! Also, they need not go across the border to another country to buy their medicines like Seniors here in US going to Canada and Mexico. No one need to go to a hospital ER empty handed and expect care and treatment like here in US and let others pick up the tab. Your mention of mediocre care ends here pal.
and let's face, lazy people like socialism. They love the safety net that means that with next to no effort on their own part they are guaranteed the basics in life. Of course they are also guaranteed mediocrity as well, but those with no real goals in life are more than happy to trade the opportunity to excel for a safety net.
As for being "happy" sheep and cattle are usually quite content with their lives, right until they get whacked between the eyes with a sledge hammer.
and when you say "let others pick up the tab" who do you think picks up the tab with socialized medicine? The Health Care Fairy?
Do the other countless species NOT on the human dinner menu chronically worry about whether they are an overachiever or a mediocrity. An entire lifetime obsessing over ones 'Net worth" hardly qualifies as superior intellect or a 'gift' of reason. Given the physical and emotional side effects of "worry" my superior "critical thought processes" often make me envy "dumb animals".
and let's face, lazy people like socialism. They love the safety net that means that with next to no effort on their own part they are guaranteed the basics in life. Of course they are also guaranteed mediocrity as well, but those with no real goals in life are more than happy to trade the opportunity to excel for a safety net.
As for being "happy" sheep and cattle are usually quite content with their lives, right until they get whacked between the eyes with a sledge hammer.
with a beautiful Swedish born server at a Hooters restaurant. She was describing how "freeing" the "Socialized Medicine" and guarantee of dignified housing was for her fellow countrymen in Sweden. The onerous fear of NOT having too worry one's whole life about their Autumn years gave a reassuring solace to every citizen; young or old.
More recently a very successful friend of mine visited Amsterdam. She also found the people far more content and happy whether they were a bookstore clerk or bonified millionaire.
Where or why America adopted this ethos of 'All or Nothing' is a conundrum when you compare it to uplifting patriotic phraseologies like "Land of milk & honey" or "Shining City on a hill". But like the Europe of old that our founding forefathers fought to break free of it was surely born of the most powerful, privileged, mercenary and greedy of its countrymen.
24 hours a day banks and Stock brokerage houses advertise the concept of "No matter how much money you have it's never enough". Is it any wonder 'teen suicide' as well as suicide among older Americans is such a growing problem that neither Fox nor MSNBC wishes to discuss?
Send us all a postcard when you get there.
The 2008 bubble burst based on flawed housing speculation, blind greed, and a subsequent social/hiring revolution already took care of your question. Should I and millions of others like me simply seek a space on an Ice flow so you can go about your business of braggadocio and callused inhumanity unfettered?
You can't take it with you, so what is the sense of amassing 10 lifetimes of "it".
We all know conservatives are happier than liberals in the U.S. so you are causing the very thing you are bitching about by staying here and driving our unhappiness levels up for the study. lol
My name is no longer on any "real property", and with no reportable income I enjoy free Obamacare coverage with zero deductibles. And since digital technology, 911 and the "Green Act" conspired to make my industry and 25 year career obsolete I have no compunction letting SNAP-EBT pay for my groceries.
It's not an ideal situation by any account; but I have a good roof over my head, I'm eating well, and I have healthcare coverage for the first time in 14 years. All I need do now is find some sort of 'cash' occupation and things will be totally jake.
You had healthcare coverage for all of those 14 years to by the way. You may not have had insurance but you had coverage.
And you can tell all the current uninsured how "free" their HC is now and why they are wrong that they cant afford it.
I am glad you love your Obamacare. You and the other 35% of Americans. Before Obamacare, 75-80% liked their HC so your bromance with Brobama cut the approval in half. Good job.
But fk the ones that used to like their HC, right? Screw them if they lost their doctor that may have saved their life, screw the ones who no longer have the best cancer centers/hospitals anymore AND having the added pleasure of paying more for their HC then they can afford. And I guess since many will lose/have lost their jobs was just a little ancillary benefit I guess. You got yours and thats all that matters.
Now since other people are paying for your HC, try and be happy about it so we can do better in the next world poll.
Thanks for staying. :
Some GOOD reading here...........
"To My Fellow Filthy Rich Americans: Wake Up, People. The Pitchforks Are Coming"
Memo To: My Fellow Zillionaires
You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor.
I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine.
But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?
I see pitchforks.
At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.
If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples.
None. It’s not if, it’s when.
Many of us think we’re special because “this is America.” We think we’re immune to the same forces that started the Arab Spring—or the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter. I know you fellow .01%ers tend to dismiss this kind of argument; I’ve had many of you tell me to my face I’m completely bonkers. And yes, I know there are many of you who are convinced that because you saw a poor kid with an iPhone that one time, inequality is a fiction.
Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world. What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens.
Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand.
That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us.[/quote
Couldn't have said it better myself! 
"Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society."
So many here, who blame the poor and middle-class for not succeeding to their level, use the wave old 'capitalism' flag, all the while not admitting to what this author has just admitted to.
"In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising."
I've said, several times here, that I can't think of one example of a revolution occurring because a country used a percolate up model, but plenty with the trickle down model
Probably as early as next year when Republicans are in total control of the Senate and House Republicans will push to completely gut Safety net programs for the poor/middle class, while taxes on the top 10% will be reduced. I also see the approval levels of both the Republican controlled Senate/House cratering much below the 7% it is now. We will also probably spend most of next year watching the House/senate-impeachment hearings of Obama, which should do wonders for Republicans seeking minority voter support in 2016. Stay tuned
I hadn't thought of that. There's also the issue of people getting fed up with the Supreme Court; mostly regarding the conservative voting judges. That could be a major selling point for the Democrats.
are overweight (insert the word "obese"), I seriously doubt they will have the energy to carry pitchforks, let alone hike to Palo Alto, Greenwich, or other affluent towns as noted in the attached rebuttal to Hanauer.
"To My Fellow Filthy Rich Americans: Wake Up, People. The Pitchforks Are Coming"
Memo To: My Fellow Zillionaires
You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor.
I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine.
But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?
I see pitchforks.
At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.
If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples.
None. It’s not if, it’s when.
Many of us think we’re special because “this is America.” We think we’re immune to the same forces that started the Arab Spring—or the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter. I know you fellow .01%ers tend to dismiss this kind of argument; I’ve had many of you tell me to my face I’m completely bonkers. And yes, I know there are many of you who are convinced that because you saw a poor kid with an iPhone that one time, inequality is a fiction.
Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world. What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens.
Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand.
That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us.
So what makes a person happy? Because they tell you they are happy?
What does it mean if the “winner” in this poll (Switzerland) has a death rate by drug abuse that is 25% higher than the U.S. and Austria’s is DOUBLE?
How about the fact that HALF of the countries in this poll have death rates by alcoholism greater than the U.S. (Denmark, Austria, Norway, Finland and Switzerland) with Denmark’s more than SIX TIMES that of the U.S?
No impact yet? How about suicide rates then? Finland, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria and Sweden all have higher suicide rates than the U.S. (Finland's is 70% higher).
I suppose all that counts is they say they are happy but how do you know they aren’t lying? And they are happy, compared to what other circumstance? As an extreme example, I wonder how many people in North Korea if polled would tell you that they are happy?
One large factor in these polls is the homogeneity and total size of the population. It is so much easier to create environments that please larger proportions when the population is either relatively small or more importantly, most people are culturally very similar to one another.
People can be educated to be happy with what they are given. Most people like consistency. Many people are happy knowing that there’s not going to be any change today. Others achieve happiness thinking that tomorrow could be better than today. Financial wealth is not what makes most people happy, but it works out great when there are enough people that are motivated by it so they keep an economic system running. I guess the trick is keeping that number correct or just convince people they are happy doing what you tell them or give them
Seems like it's a bit more complicated that "Because they tell you they are happy..."
Is it possible to not mind healthy competition, but draw the line when my health is of interest of anybody by myself? I would like to see us move past and guarantee that all Americans will get medical care for a healthier and happier life, with our health being the line of healthy competition. Universal health care for all suffering Americans, not wait until the final stages of life.
I will stay right here in the USA. Happy 4th of July!
I go to my hometown BBQ (yes, I splurge on tasty pork 
) But what I took notice, politicians never come up and want to shake my hand, give me fan, say hello. I use to wonder why that was, but I think I understand now. I don't belong to the game, I am not useful to the corporations or all the fussing and fighting in politics. I have found my happiness is always changing, and I am perfectly content with what I have. I have a 16 acre farm paid for, an above ground pool where I can close my eyes and pretend I am anywhere, a gifted hot tub, no debt, a 15 year old car (with low miles) I bought from my deceased grandmother, a house too big for me to keep clean. Might not be much for those playing the game, but it keeps me busy in between working for my own corporation. Did I say I absolutely love working for myself
The more I have, the less free time I have. I learned this from a mess hoarders left me to clean up. It is as crystal clear to me as the day I learned my back aches were my kidneys ever time I drank liquor.
The future is uncertain, but what is certain CHANGE. I have always overcome and moved towards a life that makes me HAPPY. Yes, I am not useful to corporations any longer. The next chapter is a mystery, but not scary. No.
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