<story><title>Why the U.S. Spends So Much More Than Other Nations on Health Care</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/upshot/us-health-care-expensive-country-comparison.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cdoxsey</author><text>Your comment about religion is incorrect. Americans are very generous: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;givingusa.org&amp;#x2F;giving-usa-2017-total-charitable-donations-rise-to-new-high-of-390-05-billion&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;givingusa.org&amp;#x2F;giving-usa-2017-total-charitable-donat...&lt;/a&gt;. Conservative Evangelical Churches spend an enormous amount of time and money helping people. For example: The Southern Baptist Convention runs the third largest disaster relief organization in the country behind the Salvation Army (also religious...) and the Red Cross.&lt;p&gt;I could give lots of other examples. I&amp;#x27;m not sure where this perception about religion is coming from. Maybe in Europe the church is largely dead, but that&amp;#x27;s not true in the US.</text></item><item><author>spiderfarmer</author><text>I think the US could easily solve this if they wanted to, but from my (Dutch) point of view:&lt;p&gt;- The US is philosophically much more egotistic than other developed countries&lt;p&gt;- Politically the US is the most divided western country with its two party system&lt;p&gt;- Money in politics means it&amp;#x27;s one of the most corrupt, preventing solutions that could serve its citizens&lt;p&gt;- Conservative media does a very good job at keeping at least 50% of the country comically uninformed&lt;p&gt;- The &amp;quot;American Dream&amp;quot; gives people the impression that working hard solves everything and that their country is the best in the world period&lt;p&gt;- Religion is not focussed on empathy at all anymore, if it ever was&lt;p&gt;The billionare .0001% will probably do their utmost to keep the status quo, as evidently, they are the ones that are profiting from the current situation and they are the ones calling the shots for the next 3 years.&lt;p&gt;The US is doing very good in a lot of areas, but I think collective egotism is preventing it from reaching its true potential.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>raducu</author><text>The original post was about empathy not &amp;quot;being generous&amp;quot;.  
I was raised in a very religious family and in my experience most religious people are not empathic at all.  
Yes, there are exceptions, especially amongst the more mystical types, but most religious people are &amp;quot;generous&amp;quot; because they are trying to score points for the afterlife. It&amp;#x27;s fascinating to see how people act in church (where they feel God is watching) versus how they treat eachother the rest of the week.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why the U.S. Spends So Much More Than Other Nations on Health Care</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/upshot/us-health-care-expensive-country-comparison.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cdoxsey</author><text>Your comment about religion is incorrect. Americans are very generous: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;givingusa.org&amp;#x2F;giving-usa-2017-total-charitable-donations-rise-to-new-high-of-390-05-billion&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;givingusa.org&amp;#x2F;giving-usa-2017-total-charitable-donat...&lt;/a&gt;. Conservative Evangelical Churches spend an enormous amount of time and money helping people. For example: The Southern Baptist Convention runs the third largest disaster relief organization in the country behind the Salvation Army (also religious...) and the Red Cross.&lt;p&gt;I could give lots of other examples. I&amp;#x27;m not sure where this perception about religion is coming from. Maybe in Europe the church is largely dead, but that&amp;#x27;s not true in the US.</text></item><item><author>spiderfarmer</author><text>I think the US could easily solve this if they wanted to, but from my (Dutch) point of view:&lt;p&gt;- The US is philosophically much more egotistic than other developed countries&lt;p&gt;- Politically the US is the most divided western country with its two party system&lt;p&gt;- Money in politics means it&amp;#x27;s one of the most corrupt, preventing solutions that could serve its citizens&lt;p&gt;- Conservative media does a very good job at keeping at least 50% of the country comically uninformed&lt;p&gt;- The &amp;quot;American Dream&amp;quot; gives people the impression that working hard solves everything and that their country is the best in the world period&lt;p&gt;- Religion is not focussed on empathy at all anymore, if it ever was&lt;p&gt;The billionare .0001% will probably do their utmost to keep the status quo, as evidently, they are the ones that are profiting from the current situation and they are the ones calling the shots for the next 3 years.&lt;p&gt;The US is doing very good in a lot of areas, but I think collective egotism is preventing it from reaching its true potential.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spiderfarmer</author><text>My perception about religion is coming from the fact that evangelicals supported Trump and recently Roy Moore. Without that support, the ACA wouldn&amp;#x27;t be dismantled and a lot of minorities would be better off. It&amp;#x27;s like evangelicals in America invented their own form of Christianity that is far different than what Jesus preached.</text></comment>