- Apr 12, 2011
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We're not connecting here. You say Americans don't have enough wealth. I show that Americans have more wealth than ever before and that the U.S. is one of the world'd richest countries. Now you're sort of (no numbers) into income distribution and my take is that while I can agree that your view just fine w/ most folks, the reality is that we can't converse if we're just sharing feelings.Most of that wealth is at the top of the totem poll. GDP and such figures, as the one you're citing are misleading. If the cost of living in the empire (USA) is through the roof, with most people living paycheck to paycheck, without health insurance (or under insured with high premiums, deductibles, and co-payments), heavily burdened in credit card and student debt, on the precipice of being replaced (pushed off the cliff) by intelligent robots (advanced automation), then your figures don't reflect reality. It's a mirage of bullshit.
Right now I'm physically in Panama but I work in the U.S. (online/travel). It's cheap here....You're an expat in Panama. Why did you leave the US? I lived in Costa Rica for a few years when I was in my 20s back when my father lived there. He was also an American expat living in Latin America. The GDP of Costa Rica is a micron-speck compared to that of the US, and yet people have healthcare. Full coverage. No one in Costa Rica is going bankrupt with medical bills. I love Costa Rica. Pura Vida!
Health care is a precious commodity and if some gov't mandate makes it cheap then u either get shortages or there has to be some way of allocating it. Latin American health care involves loooong waits, inadequate care, and extraordinary inconvenience. However an American can get super care really cheap here compared to the U.S. because there most of the money goes to lawyers. Panama doesn't have that kind of legal system -tho on the downside when we buy health care here we don't have the recourse if the doc botches it.
You get what u pay for.