I’m in Australia, which is supposed to have universal health care, that system has been eroded into dysfunction by decades of neglect and downsizing by subsequent conservative governments. Right wingers slash and burn budgets, and then “left leaning” centrist governments come in with the weakest possible reform agenda, never returning things to where they were but preventing others from fixing it either.
I’m not sure where Canada, NZ and other English speaking nations are at, but I assumed that their health systems are negatively affected by neo liberalism and similarly face problems that didn’t exist 10-25 years ago. Even if they have universal healthcare on paper, shenanigans by lobbyists, slashing of budgets and other institutional neglect has led to a breakdown in the care people can access.
The UK has an even worse issue with the NHS. It was already as bad as Australia before Brexit, now it’s been a prolonged period of people on public waiting lists where patients wait for over 2 years, unable to see specialists or book in surgeries. Untold amount of misery, and even death, that was preventable.
Countries like Sweden, Norway and Finland seem to have done a better job protecting the interests of the public from greed. But then there’s western countries that have huge social issues like Spain, France, etc.
My perception is that western democracies are not good at protecting their citizens because law makers, the media and other mechanisms in a western democracy allow for abuse by greed and self interest. It seems like despite strong laws and traditions existing, ongoing campaigning by those with money and allowing those people to earn a profit from essential services results in those services being eroded.
I’m in Australia, which is supposed to have universal health care, that system has been eroded into dysfunction by decades of neglect and downsizing by subsequent conservative governments. Right wingers slash and burn budgets, and then “left leaning” centrist governments come in with the weakest possible reform agenda, never returning things to where they were but preventing others from fixing it either.
I’m not sure where Canada, NZ and other English speaking nations are at, but I assumed that their health systems are negatively affected by neo liberalism and similarly face problems that didn’t exist 10-25 years ago. Even if they have universal healthcare on paper, shenanigans by lobbyists, slashing of budgets and other institutional neglect has led to a breakdown in the care people can access.
The UK has an even worse issue with the NHS. It was already as bad as Australia before Brexit, now it’s been a prolonged period of people on public waiting lists where patients wait for over 2 years, unable to see specialists or book in surgeries. Untold amount of misery, and even death, that was preventable.
Countries like Sweden, Norway and Finland seem to have done a better job protecting the interests of the public from greed. But then there’s western countries that have huge social issues like Spain, France, etc.
My perception is that western democracies are not good at protecting their citizens because law makers, the media and other mechanisms in a western democracy allow for abuse by greed and self interest. It seems like despite strong laws and traditions existing, ongoing campaigning by those with money and allowing those people to earn a profit from essential services results in those services being eroded.
Thank you for this, it’s really well written.
Yeah, I get you. I was being dense.