In much of coverage of the recent unpleasantness in New Orleans locals and reporters were both asking how this could have happened. The common question for all was "are we not a first world nation?" It still needs to be asked because the US is country that has both third and first world characteristics.
America has very high tech like India. America subsidizes its aerospace industry like Brazil. It is full of the wealthy like Saudia Arabia. Unlike the rest of the first world the US doesn't have some kind of "socialized medicine", (see Malcolm Gladwell's excellent New Yorker article). The society that can ignore the problem with uninsured can ignore almost anything until a city floats away. A Blogger Kottke put it well when he wrote.
America has very high tech like India. America subsidizes its aerospace industry like Brazil. It is full of the wealthy like Saudia Arabia. Unlike the rest of the first world the US doesn't have some kind of "socialized medicine", (see Malcolm Gladwell's excellent New Yorker article). The society that can ignore the problem with uninsured can ignore almost anything until a city floats away. A Blogger Kottke put it well when he wrote.
You can point fingers at what's wrong or who's responsible all day long, but the facts remain, America's health care system sucks...well, unless you're rich, in which case nothing really sucks. The BBC put it well earlier this week in writing about the crisis in New Orleans:
The uneasy paradox which so many live with in this country - of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals, out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they can get away with, while at the same time believing that America is a robust, model society - has reached a crisis point this week.
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