Caroline Calais -- Democracy in Americas

Politics is all about culture. Look for example at the McCain and Obama health plans. Barack Obama would have the government organize a health care market where private health-care plans competes with a new government run plan, and where the government subsidies low-income customers. John McCain on the other hand suggests a tax change that would encourage Americans to buy insurance on the open market, eliminating the current bias toward employer-sponsored healthcare. None of the presidential hopefuls propose a universal healthcare covering all citizen and permanent residents, leaving Americans the only people in the industrialized world without a social right to healthcare.

            This is what most Europeans have; virtually all countries publicly sponsors and regulate healthcare. So if Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie gets sick, the French government will be there for them. It already is. The French welfare state is offering the couple about $2,600/ month in child support -- it is a social right. Sounds kind of crazy, but don’t tell the French, for them the welfare system is an important part of their country, of their collective identity, of the way they relate to other countries and people.

            Politics is in other words more about culture than issue, our cultural values guiding the decision of whom to choose for president. Which makes me wonder? How come the Europeans are so enamored with Barack Obama when John McCain’s health plan in reality is closer to their own cultural values? In an American context, if you take all people that have employer based health insurance and through them into the market to buy their own insurance, isn’t that as “universal” as America can get?