Are you guys sick of the USA?

Posts from hell: Have you ever thought about cons and pros on Australia compared to America, and the other countries in term of lifestyle.
 
souggy said:
YOu means Daft, not Dixie, right?

Does sounds extreme, and doesn't even line up with the UKers' own experiences, albeit except for Lissa-- all are Scottish. Don't know about Germany, but it just seems odd to me as well since Germany is pretty high on the freedom indexes.
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Whoops. Let me read what Daft said down below...
 
posts from hell said:
Right now, I’m not even close to prepared. But like always, I’ll find a way.


[*]Can you please show me evidence – non US based media source – on the delays on NHS in UK? Because I’m finding the opposite.
[*]Double the price of gas – I took every opportunity to fill my jeep up at $4.65 a gallon when it was that high. So, yes, I am willing.
[*] I did not know that the food price in UK was expensive. Although I have heard that a slice of pizza, spaghetti, coke and a beer runs around US $60 in Denmark.
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I've been doing a bit of online research. It's by no means through but I came across this article and Telegraph is the source:

Published: 12:01AM BST 24 Jun 2004

The new Labour and Tory health policies announced yesterday are attempts to sweet-talk the middle classes who flocked to Tony Blair in 1997 and are now feeling the pinch of higher taxes with no appreciable improvement in public services. Stick with us, both parties chorus, and you can choose the best hospital for your illness.

Although both campaigns are confusingly marketed under the same banner of "choice", the Tories are certainly offering patients more wriggle room than the Government. Whatever you want, public or private, and whatever hospital in either sector, you'll get it, is the Tory promise. The only problem is that the wriggling is going to cost a lot more taxpayers' money - £34 billion.

Labour's choice is a limited one: the right to pick from four or five hospitals, and, the chances are, those will all be NHS hospitals, unless demand is so great for a particular operation that you happen to be farmed out to a private hospital on NHS funds and at NHS discretion.

To misquote Henry Ford, the choice between the two parties really boils down to this: vote for Labour's health policy and you can have any car you want, as long as it's black; vote Tory and you can pick anything you want off the colour chart, but be prepared for, at the very least, frozen spending levels in all government departments other than health and education, to pay for that choice.

The Tories are gambling that the country is ready to embrace private healthcare on a grand scale. At the moment, 12 per cent of the populace have private health schemes.

Many more would have to go private if they are to be swayed by the two planks of the Tory policy: the right to transfer your operation from the NHS to the private sector if it can be done for the same price; and if it can't, the right to be paid a subsidy for a private operation that's worth half the cost of the equivalent NHS operation.

There is indeed every sign that more people are prepared to pay for their healthcare, as long as they continue receiving better value than in the public sector. As Michael Howard points out on the Opinion section, the number of people who have chosen to go private since Labour came to power has soared, and that goes both for hospitals and for private surgeries.

The same migration from public to private has taken place in education, where the percentage of children in private education is greater than it has ever been and pupils are flocking to grammar schools.

Next week, Mr Howard will launch the Tories' education plans, putting flesh on the bones of the private school subsidy plan, whereby parents can spend a government contribution of £5,000 on the school of their choice (with the unfortunate restriction that they can spend it only on schools that charge £5,000 or less).

These ideas are admirable and bold. The Prime Minister wheeled out the old familiar attacks yesterday, labelling them "choice for the few" and "not a right to choose, but a right to charge". Those attacks are unfair. The incentive to go private for free will improve the standard of care for the many as well as the few; and the strain that is taken off the NHS by the subsidised private migration will have the same effect.

The Prime Minister's attacks would have more force if his own plans had more life to them. To be fair to him, he is moving in the right direction, acknowledging that patients should have the right to choose their hospital. In education, he is pushing to increase the amount of specialist schools and city academies, while acknowledging that vocational options should be improved for unacademic children.

But his ideas are never allowed to blossom. Reined in by Labour backbenchers, they are doomed either to wither on the vine or to be emasculated, as were his plans for top-up fees and foundation hospitals.

The logical extension of Tony Blair's love of choice is to embrace private healthcare and selective education. Old Labour ideologues still wince at these notions. It is unfortunate that Mr Blair is bound to their wishes.
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Take a look at BBC's political map of 2005. The above article is dated 2004. I take it then that the Brits weren't sold on the Tories' healthcare issue that resulted in the Tories' defeat.. I'm not a British citizen and there could be other factors not related to healthcare. I gather then that some Brits may have problems with aspects of the healthcare but they arent' unhappy enough to vote for the Tories on this issue.
 
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danny.nguyen said:
Posts from hell: Have you ever thought about cons and pros on Australia compared to America, and the other countries in term of lifestyle.
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I'd be interested to hear your pros and cons on that, PFH. Right, Danny?
 
posts from hell said:
You saw the title.

I am a Deaf to the core individual that absolutely dislikes the USA for many reasons.

I'm about to move out to ANY other country. I seriously believe any other country can be better than the USA. (Yes, this list includes Burkina Faso, South Africa, and Colombia.)

If you want to know some stuff:

  • [*]The USA media is constantly lying to you. This is the reason I do not have a TV.
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  • TV is ENTERTAINMENT. That's why nothing is true on TV. You are missing out on a lot of good shit on TV, including Flash-Forward. I am proud to say I own 3 TVs. TV is fun! Just ignore the news, simple as that. I ignore the news on TV myself.

    Oh, on a side note, I'll prefer to move to Norway, Sweden, Denmark. I like Iceland as well. But I want easy access to the beer in Sweden/Belgium, and the tables in Monaco.
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    :cold: I'd rather live in the southern USA. Or I could go to Mexico. I live only two hours from Mexico anyway. Someplace hot. I hate the cold. My body does not respond very nicely to the cold. It's January and my body hurts, and I live in TEXAS. Last winter I had issues with my arthritic thumbs, I would wake up with my thumbs unable to move unless I physically use one hand to crack-bend the other hand's thumb and then do it the other way so that I could start bending both of my thumbs to do things like typing, writing, signing. Same happens to my hips and knees. So far it hasn't happened again yet. Winter is halfway over for us in Texas, winters does not last long in south Texas. It'll warm up by the end of February. It would be nice to live in a very hot place. We get triple digits in the summer and that does not bother me. I just wish that the heat would last year round.

    If you don't like the USA, leave already.

    I am glad I was born in the USA and not some third world country due to the health conditions and disabilities I was born with. If I was born in, say, Darfur or somewhere like that I would die shortly after birth for sure. I was a very sick and premature baby. I was born 8 weeks premature, my mother had to have an emergency c-section because the placenta came before me (forgot the term for that) and that was life threatening, and I had to be delivered immediately or both me and my mother would die. She was just 16 years old and she was in foster care herself. If we were in Darfur she would be on her own, with a dead baby, and possibly herself dying. I consider myself lucky to be born in the USA where we have doctors and modern medical care and hospitals, and where my mother was on medical assistance, so we had access to medical care. I consider myself lucky to have Medicaid and Medicare so I could get the medical care I need, and so I could have my CI and maintain my CI and so I could get the batteries I need for my CI. Just the other day I got 300 batteries (which is 6 month's worth) in the mail from Cochlear, paid for by Medicaid and Medicare. I am thankful. I am going to have surgery on my hip soon after I am evaluated for a hip replacement, and that will be paid for by Medicaid and Medicare if the evaluation goes well, otherwise I will be getting a wheelchair. I can't wait til I can get the hip replacement so I can start walking comfortably and be able to stand for more than 1 minute. And start being able to walk the 3 blocks to get to the grocery store and the pharmacy and go shopping on my own and walking around the neighborhood getting the exercise I need so I can be stronger. My friend just had a hip replacement and she is doing so good already, and I envy her. I can't wait. So I am not going to complain about living in the USA. If I can't get the hip replacement I will at least get the wheelchair which will allow me more independence as well, I'll be able to get around the city in it without too much pain. It is up to the doctor as to whether I qualify (medical-wise) for a hip replacement or to go into a wheelchair. The hip replacement will be paid for by Medicaid and Medicare if I am approved by the doctor, otherwise I will be getting the wheelchair.

    People in third world countries aren't as lucky. They have to work in sweatshops for only pennies per day, and don't know when or where their next meal is coming from, and can barely feed and clothe their children, and have to drink dirty water which cause sicknesses in children and cause babies to be born with cleft palates and missing limbs and other disabilities, and there is no health care for the people there who can't afford it. There is no insurance for the poor families. They can't even get medical equipment, such as wheelchairs unless they get lucky somehow. Only the well-off families in third world countries get lucky. It's not pretty. The poor people in third world countries try to get here to the USA so they would get better opportunities but they are often turned away because the USA doesn't want outsiders. They don't want to share the land with the others. They think immigrants are "bad people" who "don't deserve opportunities".
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
TV is ENTERTAINMENT. That's why nothing is true on TV. You are missing out on a lot of good shit on TV, including Flash-Forward. I am proud to say I own 3 TVs. TV is fun! Just ignore the news, simple as that. I ignore the news on TV myself.



:cold: I'd rather live in the southern USA. Or I could go to Mexico. I live only two hours from Mexico anyway. Someplace hot. I hate the cold. My body does not respond very nicely to the cold. It's January and my body hurts, and I live in TEXAS. Last winter I had issues with my arthritic thumbs, I would wake up with my thumbs unable to move unless I physically use one hand to crack-bend the other hand's thumb and then do it the other way so that I could start bending both of my thumbs to do things like typing, writing, signing. Same happens to my hips and knees. So far it hasn't happened again yet. Winter is halfway over for us in Texas, winters does not last long in south Texas. It'll warm up by the end of February. It would be nice to live in a very hot place. We get triple digits in the summer and that does not bother me. I just wish that the heat would last year round.

If you don't like the USA, leave already.

I am glad I was born in the USA and not some third world country due to the health conditions and disabilities I was born with. If I was born in, say, Darfur or somewhere like that I would die shortly after birth for sure. I was a very sick and premature baby. I was born 8 weeks premature, my mother had to have an emergency c-section because the placenta came before me (forgot the term for that) and that was life threatening, and I had to be delivered immediately or both me and my mother would die. She was just 16 years old and she was in foster care herself. If we were in Darfur she would be on her own, with a dead baby, and possibly herself dying. I consider myself lucky to be born in the USA where we have doctors and modern medical care and hospitals, and where my mother was on medical assistance, so we had access to medical care. I consider myself lucky to have Medicaid and Medicare so I could get the medical care I need, and so I could have my CI and maintain my CI and so I could get the batteries I need for my CI. Just the other day I got 300 batteries (which is 6 month's worth) in the mail from Cochlear, paid for by Medicaid and Medicare. I am thankful. I am going to have surgery on my hip soon after I am evaluated for a hip replacement, and that will be paid for by Medicaid and Medicare if the evaluation goes well, otherwise I will be getting a wheelchair. I can't wait til I can get the hip replacement so I can start walking comfortably and be able to stand for more than 1 minute. And start being able to walk the 3 blocks to get to the grocery store and the pharmacy and go shopping on my own and walking around the neighborhood getting the exercise I need so I can be stronger. My friend just had a hip replacement and she is doing so good already, and I envy her. I can't wait. So I am not going to complain about living in the USA. If I can't get the hip replacement I will at least get the wheelchair which will allow me more independence as well, I'll be able to get around the city in it without too much pain. It is up to the doctor as to whether I qualify for a hip replacement or to go into a wheelchair.

People in third world countries aren't as lucky. They have to work in sweatshops for only pennies per day, and don't know when or where their next meal is coming from, and can barely feed and clothe their children, and have to drink dirty water which cause sicknesses in children and cause babies to be born with cleft palates and missing limbs and other disabilities, and there is no health care for the people there who can't afford it. There is no insurance for the poor families. Only the well-off families in third world countries get lucky. It's not pretty. The poor people in third world countries try to get here to the USA so they would get better opportunities but they are often turned away because the USA doesn't want outsiders. They don't want to share the land with the others. They think immigrants are "bad people" who "don't deserve opportunities".
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If you're a middle class worker living in the US, you're screwed...you would end up paying for almost everything. Health care won't be free for you unless you are lucky that your employer has one. You are on SSI, don't have a job and you get full health coverage, basically...so that's a different story. Otherwise, they don't have much money to save up for nicer stuff, that's the tough part.
 
sequoias said:
If you're a middle class worker living in the US, you're screwed...you would end up paying for almost everything. Health care won't be free for you unless you are lucky that your employer has one. You are on SSI, don't have a job and you get full health coverage, basically...so that's a different story. Otherwise, they don't have much money to save up for nicer stuff, that's the tough part.
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Yeah, I agree. But the USA has got to be better than living in a 3rd world country though.

When I used to work full time (before I was laid off and before my health issues got worse) I got really good health insurance through my job. I never had to paid one cent for my medical care nor for my medications, if I can remember correctly. The highest I ever got paid was maybe $11/hr with benefits. That was about 10 years ago, I think.
 
If you're aching from the cold in Texas, you would be aching from the winters ANYWHERE in the world once you've adjusted to the temperatures in those places. "Grass is greener on the other side" thinking here.

I know, because there was a researcher that went to Colombia. It was great the first year, but then the second year-- it was sorta like living at home with the seasonal changes. The temperatures didn't change in the second year, but the way his body was conditioned to the heat changed. ;)
 
i'd rather stay in the united states, i don't even have a passport.. haha. imagine having to learn a whole new sign language after moving to a new country! i only know the BSL alphabet.. and that's hard enough. perhaps if i move to an area that uses BSL predominantly, then i can pick it up.. but i don't feel like doing that at the moment. i'm quite happy with where i am. :P
 
sequoias said:
If you're a middle class worker living in the US, you're screwed...you would end up paying for almost everything. Health care won't be free for you unless you are lucky that your employer has one. You are on SSI, don't have a job and you get full health coverage, basically...so that's a different story. Otherwise, they don't have much money to save up for nicer stuff, that's the tough part.
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Yup, only job with bad health insurance benefits or family, being family in middle class (with kids) faces more tougher than being single in middle class.

My parent is middle class and they got great health insurance benefits via job.
 
sequoias said:
If you're a middle class worker living in the US, you're screwed...you would end up paying for almost everything. Health care won't be free for you unless you are lucky that your employer has one. You are on SSI, don't have a job and you get full health coverage, basically...so that's a different story. Otherwise, they don't have much money to save up for nicer stuff, that's the tough part.
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That's how I feel. We are middle class and we cant seem to get ahead due to high taxes.
 
souggy said:
Edit: Posted reply for wong topic.

And "sick of the USA?"

Well... I have it on good word that deaf people are not exactly best-off in Europe either. ;)
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Not to mention the media lies everywhere and governments all have hidden agendas, are corrupt and full of crooks. The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.
 
shel90 said:
That's how I feel. We are middle class and we cant seem to get ahead due to high taxes.
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It can be more factors, such as you mention about use credit card.

I learned from my parent about using credit card so often is very bad so I know better about it, I maybe use credit card on some purchases so pay off in full without have ridiculous interest rate and The Highlander (AD member) is great resource for me to know about credit card.

Like I said, being have family with kids in middle class are tough.
 
Foxrac said:
It can be more factors, such as you mention about use credit card.

I learned from my parent about using credit card so often is very bad so I know better about it, I maybe use credit card on some purchases so pay off in full without have ridiculous interest rate and The Highlander (AD member) is great resource for me to know about credit card.

Like I said, being have family with kids in middle class are tough.
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Trust me..it is the high taxes especially here in MD. Very high here especially property taxes.
 
shel90 said:
Trust me..it is the high taxes especially here in MD. Very high here especially property taxes.
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I trust you, I forgot about high property tax so sorry about it.

Pretty same in IL, you will pay high property tax in Chicago metro so it seems like common in big cities in midwest and northeast states, even some southern states, probably FL and Texas (in Dallas).

In here, property tax is very low.
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
Yeah, I agree. But the USA has got to be better than living in a 3rd world country though.

When I used to work full time (before I was laid off and before my health issues got worse) I got really good health insurance through my job. I never had to paid one cent for my medical care nor for my medications, if I can remember correctly. The highest I ever got paid was maybe $11/hr with benefits. That was about 10 years ago, I think.
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Yeah, I know what you mean there. I used to earn $12.86 a hour (my best pay) with health benefits. It was nice when having that, oh well.
 
Foxrac said:
I trust you, I forgot about high property tax so sorry about it.

Pretty same in IL, you will pay high property tax in Chicago metro so it seems like common in big cities in midwest and northeast states, even some southern states, probably FL and Texas (in Dallas).

In here, property tax is very low.
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Yes property taxes are very high here in Texas. I pay $14,000 a year on one house. That's more than 3x what I pay in New Mexico for the same size and prop. value..
 
TXgolfer said:
Yes property taxes are very high here in Texas. I pay $14,000 a year on one house. That's more than 3x what I pay in New Mexico for the same size and prop. value..
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and to think my property tax was high.
 
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