I couldn’t have said it better myself. Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said to the U.S:
“Welcome to the club of states who don’t turn their back on the sick and the poor.
When we look at the American debate on reforming health care, it’s difficult to believe.
The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them … is something astonishing to us.
If you come to France and something happens to you, you won’t be asked for your credit card before you’re rushed to the hospital.”
After a while, the debate got so ridiculous, you almost had to laugh. As a country, we look bad when our healthy and wealthy people don’t want the poor and sick to have insurance. We also look bad when we want insurance companies to continue to be able to take insurance away from those who are sick.
We look bad when we say, “Who’s going to pay for it?” What if we had the same attitude about schools, libraries, police, and firemen?
People are either stupid or mean and lack empathy.
Of course, it’s easy to jump on a bandwagon and mock the French for opposing the Iraq war, implying that they’re weak and then never apologizing for it when it turns out they were right.
Tags: American, astonishing, France, health care debate, insurance, Nicolas Sarkozy, poorest, ridiculous, who's going to pay for it
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