Bullet Points

Megan McArdle has given us a handy list of her reasons why America cannot do what every other major nation manages to achieve: provide health care for its citizens. Let's take a look!

More wage inequality means doctors need to make more.

Because when society is unequal, we need to give the elite more money to make up for it. In other words, we're selfish, greedy and heartless, not to mention un-Judeo-Christian.

The American political system is especially easy to lobby

We're crooked too.

American public services culture is, in general, less effective than the Nordic countries, and no, this is not simply an artifact of Republicans criticizing government bureaucrats; the government bureaucrats do a great deal that is worthy of criticism

Our lower class is inferior to Nordic countries' lower class. It must be their ethnic-osity.

Path dependence: it's a lot easier not to give people a new drug or treatment than to take one away.

We're indolent and greedy.

Intolerance of tradeoffs: we do not even do the very obvious things to control costs in the system, like rethinking extraordinary measures at the end of life. The harder tradeoffs are simply non-starters.

We're really greedy.

American attitudes toward government: when told they can't have something they want, Americans do not say, oh, okay. They go on the news and call their congressman.

We're incredibly greedy.

Federalist and non-parliamentary democracy: in most other systems, the head of the government tells the government what to do. In our system, you need 220 congressmen and 50-60 senators. There's no way to implement the sort of technocratic change that reformers envision; the politicians will keep sticking their fingers in the pie.

We elect greedy representatives.

Conservatism: the American public is considerably to the right of any European electorate, and no, this isn't just an artifact of Republicans lying to them. They have different attitudes about how much they want the government to do, and how much they are willing to pay to do it. Many of the reforms that hold costs down in Europe are simply non-starters because they smack too much of socialism.

We're also stupid.

Well, that's quite the list. We're too greedy, stupid and "ethnic" to have national health care. And by "we" McArdle obviously means people without elite jobs and Cadillac health care plans. I can understand now why McArdle called herself Jane Galt. When you're surrounded by greedy, lazy, crooked non-Nordic people, you have to protect yourself at all times from everyone's attempts to take advantage of you.