{"id":10369,"date":"2013-05-29T01:15:08","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T08:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10369"},"modified":"2013-05-29T01:15:08","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T08:15:08","slug":"a-comparison-with-socialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/29\/a-comparison-with-socialism\/","title":{"rendered":"A Comparison with Socialism"},"content":{"rendered":"

To a recent article I wrote on ObamaCare, a friend commented that the problem is not that it is socialist, as Republicans claim, but that it is not socialist enough.  We do have one self-avowed socialist in the US Senate, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).  He penned an article comparing the us with socialist Denmark.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"29DanishHC\"Danish Ambassador Peter Taksoe-Jensen spent a weekend in Vermont this month traveling with me to town meetings in Burlington, Brattleboro and Montpelier. Large crowds came out to learn about a social system very different from our own which provides extraordinary security and opportunity for the people of Denmark.<\/p>\n

Today in the United States there is a massive amount of economic anxiety. Unemployment is much too high, wages and income are too low, millions of Americans are struggling to find affordable health care and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider. <\/p>\n

While young working families search desperately for affordable child care, older Americans worry about how they can retire with dignity. Many of our people are physically exhausted as they work the longest hours of any industrialized country and have far less paid vacation time than other major countries<\/p>\n

Denmark is a small, homogenous nation of about 5.5 million people. The United States is a melting pot of more than 315 million people. No question about it, Denmark and the United States are very different countries. Nonetheless, are there lessons that we can learn from Denmark?<\/p>\n

In Denmark, social policy in areas like health care, child care, education and protecting the unemployed are part of a "solidarity system" that makes sure that almost no one falls into economic despair. Danes pay very high taxes, but in return enjoy a quality of life that many Americans would find hard to believe<\/strong>. As the ambassador mentioned, while it is difficult to become very rich in Denmark no one is allowed to be poor<\/strong>. The minimum wage in Denmark is about twice that of the United States<\/strong> and people who are totally out of the labor market or unable to care for themselves have a basic income guarantee of about $100 per day.<\/p>\n

Health care in Denmark is universal, free of charge and high quality. Everybody is covered as a right of citizenship. The Danish health care system is popular, with patient satisfaction much higher than in our country<\/strong>. In Denmark, every citizen can choose a doctor in their area. Prescription drugs are inexpensive and free for those under 18 years of age. Interestingly, despite their universal coverage, the Danish health care system is far more cost-effective than ours. They spend about 11 percent of their GDP on health care. We spend almost 18 percent<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Huffington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Photo credit: Invest in Denmark<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

I strongly encourage you to click through for the rest of Bernie\u2019s article.<\/font><\/p>\n

The immediate Republican objection would be that making it difficult to become very rich in Denmark is an affront to freedom, but in case they have not noticed, it\u2019s difficult to become very rich here too.  The difference is that here, the 1% get so much that what\u2019s left is insufficient for the 99%, but in Denmark, they spend the resources on better quality of life for the 99%.<\/font><\/p>\n

Which is more desirable, a society that grossly favors 1% of it\u2019s citizens, or one that favors 99% of it\u2019s citizens?  You be they judge.  Two things are clear.  First the average Dane has a much higher standard of living than the average American.  Second, Bernie Sanders is still a national treasure.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To a recent article I wrote on ObamaCare, a friend commented that the problem is not that it is socialist, as Republicans claim, but that it is not socialist enough.  We do have one self-avowed socialist in the US Senate, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).  He penned an article comparing the us with socialist Denmark. Danish […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}