There’s a nice piece in the Washington Post called the "5 Myths About Sick Old Europe." As many of us know, it’s the United States of America that is sick (and immature). Europe has a better economy, better jobs, and, of course, there are all those cradle to grave citizen benefits (which Sicko barely touched on) over which Americans are sick to death with envy.
In other words, Europe has happier, healthier, and more productive citizens. Here in the miserly USA, we are not even close.
Washington Post:
The European Union's $16 trillion economy has been quietly surging for some time and has emerged as the largest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the global economy.
Unlike in the United States, with its rampant inequality and lack of universal access to affordable health care and higher education, Europeans have harnessed their economic engine to create wealth that is broadly distributed.
Europeans still enjoy universal cradle-to-grave social benefits in many areas. They get quality health care, paid parental leave, affordable childcare, paid sick leave, free or nearly free higher education, generous retirement pensions and quality mass transit. They have an average of five weeks of paid vacation (compared with two for Americans) and a shorter work week. In some European countries, workers put in one full day less per week than Americans do, yet enjoy the same standard of living.
Europe is more of a "workfare state" than a welfare state. As one British political analyst said to me recently: "Europe doesn't so much have a welfare society as a comprehensive system of institutions geared toward keeping everyone healthy and working." Europeans' social system contributes to their prosperity, rather than detracting from it, and even the continent's conservative political leaders agree that it is the best way.
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