
Why Can't America Handle the Coronavirus Crisis? - cjbest
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-cant-america-handle-the-coronavirus
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gentleman11
The elephant in the room (re: the pandemic response) is the privatized health
care system. With costs so high, people will avoid treatment, and with few
security nets, people will go to work sick. How exactly do you prevent a rapid
spread in that situation?

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vondur
People seem to hold the Dutch healthcare system in high regard, and it's
private.

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parasight
According to the German Wikipedia article every Dutch person is required by
law to have a "legally defined" healthcare contract. Sounds quite different to
the US system.

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creato
It sounds quite similar to the Obamacare individual mandate. Of course that's
gone now...

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olliej
private health insurance in the US is (even under Obamacare) expensive, and
the deductibles are high if you're on those cheap plans.

Under an Obamacare cheapest possible insurance option you're not going to be
_bankrupted_ by (for example) a heart attack, but you'll still be paying the
bill for a long time. That ignores hospitals like SF general that charge you
directly (and are out of network) so you can still be trivially bankrupted.

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generatorguy
The climb acronym from the article, it is same reason we can’t build nuclear
plants on time or or budget anymore.

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forkexec
The simplified answer: the US is a late-stage civilization in gradual decline
since either post-WW2 or about 1960.

The "frog" has been "boiling" slowly for a long time and is almost cooked.

See also:

\- _America: The Farewell Tour_ by Chris Hedges

\- Chalmers Johnson's _Decline of Empires: Signs of Decay_
[https://youtu.be/Q2CCs-x9q9U](https://youtu.be/Q2CCs-x9q9U)

\- _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ by Gibbon

\- _The Rise and Fall of the Great Empires_ by Taylor

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donatj
Handling it better than a lot of countries…

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PakG1
Better than who for example? Better than Iran? I'd certainly hope so. Other
than Iran, I'd say it's too early to tell.

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donatj
China? At no point we're we arresting people for spreading the word about it?

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Seenso
>> Better than who for example? Better than Iran? I'd certainly hope so. Other
than Iran, I'd say it's too early to tell.

> China? At no point we're we arresting people for spreading the word about
> it?

I'm no fan of the Chinese government, but

1) their authoritarianism both kick-started this epidemic and bungled the
initial response

2) AND seems to have contained the epidemic once its severity was understood.

The US and many other developed countries seem to be on track to bungling
their initial response, as well. That's pretty inexcusable since they've had
the benefit of months to prepare.

The US government should have paid to build up a test kit stockpile _in
February_ , but I guess now we get to see how badly free market principles
handle an epidemic.

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blackrock
But according to Western media, free, rich, and democratic America, with our
great President Trump, should be able to handle this crisis, much better than
poor, enslaved, and totalitarian China.

This is what the Western media has been pushing down our throats for the past
2 months. Did something just change in the past week?

[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/why-
democr...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/why-democracies-
are-better-fighting-outbreaks/606976/)

