Death to American Exceptionalism?

COMMON SENSE POLITICAL THEORY

“Shamefully, the United States remains the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people. The United States must move toward a Medicare-for-all single-payer system. Health care is a right, not a privilege.“

– Sen. Bernie Sanders

Yes, I am a college student, and yes I recognize with Bernie Sanders the most. And yes, if you wish to strike fear into the heart of any conservative, simply utter the words, “Universal Health Care.” No, I’m not going to get into some policy specific debate on health care, I’m going to take a different route. Rather I’d like to ask you, the American people this… Why is it that the United States of America is the only major country on planet earth that does not guarantee health care as a right?

I went to the gym recently and happened to glance over at this large sculpted man, doing some exercise I had never seen before. Me being a measly 162 pounds, I walked over there after he left, and then started doing it myself. Why? It’s simple, he was big and strong, and just like any other girl crazy college student, I wanted to be big and strong. Why can’t we the American people look around the world like this, and ask ourselves, why is the health care system of the Northern European countries so darn great? If our system was so great, why wouldn’t the rest of the developed world do as we do? It’s because the rest of the developed world is doing it better.

When I sit around campus and speak with my fellow students and ask this question, I get very similar responses. “Oh, well we’re America, that’s just not how we do it here.” Pose this question to Bill O’Reilly, and he might respond by calling you a Socialist. It’s time to take a step off our pedestal, and look around. Let’s put aside our pride, let’s fix our country using common sense. If you love this country as much as I know you do, ask yourself, “Why are other countries doing so well, why do they live better lives than us?”

We can take this ideology a step further. If you refer to the most recent world happiness report done by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, it is Denmark, Norway, and Sweden that rank among the highest in terms of happiest citizens. It may sound silly, but why are they so happy? What can we do to be as happy as they are? Yes Bill O’Reilly, you can scream and fight Democratic Socialism all you want, but you can’t fight happiness.

Like Bernie Sanders does for health care, we should do in every aspect of our country. There’s no shame in admitting that we’re not doing as well as others. Death to American exceptionalism may be brash and unnecessary, but this is a plea to all, let’s put aside our pride and use common sense. Ask your friends, family, and fellow peers these questions, and if they answer with, “Well we’re America, that’s not how we do things,” refuse to accept it, refuse to be ignorant, refuse to let our pride be our downfall, and most importantly enlighten them. I love this country, I love it enough to recognize how it can be better. That is a common sense political theory that we should all get behind.