I found this article interesting. People in the UK are far healthier than people in the US. I was also surprised to read how much more money is spent on health care in the US. My personal experience is that I’ve felt farm more unhealthy here (England) and spend far more on health care. Though it appears that dramatically reverses in the older population.

While I’m posting, I’ll digress to another article I read yesterday which I found interesting. The headline is sensationalist, and generally is a bit over the top. Also, please ignore the first half of the article which drudges on about our poor use of encryption. This takes away from his most important point: American’s political apathy and subconscious desire to be treated like children. Growing up in the US taught me that politicians are professional bull shit artists. They can’t be trusted and all we can do as voters is to give a vague guess as to how we think they’ll perform in office. This is now socially acceptable. Bush has used this acceptance to his advantage. There’s no need for him to give us the facts or even tell us what he’s up to. After all, we’re not going to believe him anyway. So his job is to be charming and remind us that he’s just like the rest us. All we have to do is blindly accept that the issues are simple, victimless, and that he’s taking care of them. This explains the low voter turn out, and why so few Americans really pay attention to the issues. It’s now gotten to the point that our leaders can do what they want without consequence. There are still the usual checks and balances, but US politicians seem to be increasingly good at circumventing these. Usually with big “classified” stamp, or with the war on terror excuse.

Maybe I’m being cynical, but living in England has shown me that it doesn’t have to be like that. Sure there’s probably corruption here, but there’s no socially acceptable precedent for it, so it’s much harder to get away with. The public and the media here are obsessive (by US standards) about keeping their government in check and their best interests as a top priority. Tony Blair and other executive leaders regularly participate in debates about the issues. Not behind closed doors where we get a summary. These are prime time news shows, news paper discussions, etc. Everyone gets their points out in the open. From liberal to conservative and everything in the middle. At the end of the day, the government may or may not make a the decisions that you like, but they explain why.

So why doesn’t this happen in the US. Are we really that lazy? Do we really just not care what our leaders do with their power?