Who does what right

[Josquius]

Has any nation got nationalism 'right' ?

Britain: " we are the shittest. Nobody is shitter than us!"

I would also place the uk or ireland top on beer.
Belgium has some good ones but most are too fizzy.

[Josquius]

Our education system is nothing but exam training and our railways are terribly ran.

Article in The Economist on English education reform (mostly stand-alone 'academies') claims German education is not that great.

US does pop culture very, very well.

The dutch seem better generally though the german apprenticship system is light years ahead of ours

[HVC]

Aren't finns the super students?

[Admiral Yi]

Aren't finns the super students?

Yup.

[Maximus]

My impression of the NHS has always been the worst in the western world, aside from the US.

[mongers]

My impression of the NHS has always been the worst in the western world, aside from the US.

Are impressions better than actual real world experiences of several different systems?

[Admiral Yi]

A lot of people on the rag recently.  Going to be a long winter.

[Sheilbh]

My impression of the NHS has always been the worst in the western world, aside from the US.

It depends what you want really.

I don't think anyone should follow the UK or the US model really. Unfortunately the system we know best aside from our own is each other's. So any suggestion of universal healthcare in the US inspires horrified stories from the NHS and any time we think of some reforms we have our own dystopian vision of US healthcare and the very idea of paying the doctor

Truth is the UK system isn't the best in the world*, I think it's good at providing what British people want which is universal coverage, that reasonably good and reasonably cheap. The French and the Germans and the Dutch (which is privatised) have great systems but they spend around 12% of GDP on it, we spend under 8% (the US spends more on public healthcare than we do) and I don't think we're really willing to pay enough new taxes to get us to the German-French-Dutch sort of level.

*Though a US thinktank did rate the NHS highly - http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror
The slight niggle is that, as the Guardian put it, 'the only serious black mark against the NHS was its poor record on keeping people alive'

[Josquius]

I've heard good things of the Danish system. Pretty much the NHS but on a more human scale.

My impression of the NHS has always been the worst in the western world, aside from the US.

Brits just like to complain about it so it seems that way.
The sad thing about health care is, no matter how good you get, people will always die.

[Sheilbh]

I always wonder how much our culture makes healthcare more difficult than it needs to be. You're right about the moaning but I always wonder, especially with older people - and in the case of my family working class people - of not complaining and not wanting to be a bother to the doctor.

A couple of non-trivial examples, my nan was dying and in terrible pain. She'd been diagnosed some painkillers but they were too big for her to swallow. She never complained to the nurses or the doctor she just stopped taking them and her condition deteriorated rapidly. She was moved to a hospice where they put her on different painkillers (which she could take) and her condition improved hugely. She explained what had happened to a nurse there who let the hospital know. She was discharged, alive, from a hospice and able to live a while longer in far less pain.

Similarly her sister would never complain about the pain she was in, even to us. We'd tell the nurses and they knew but there's a limited amount they can do if they've got a patient who just mustn't grumble. I don't know if that's just a generational thing, or still around in younger generations of Brits.

A trivial example though is even when I go to the doctor for something and they ask me how I am I always say 'oh I'm fine'. Then embarrassed try and explain whatever my problem is in the way that's least likely to cause alarm. So maybe it's younger generation too.

[Jacob]

A lot of people on the rag recently.  Going to be a long winter.

[MadImmortalMan]

The slight niggle is that, as the Guardian put it, 'the only serious black mark against the NHS was its poor record on keeping people alive'

We don't have a dual mandate--Mario Draghi


...Oh wait, wrong agency.

[mongers]

I always wonder how much our culture makes healthcare more difficult than it needs to be. You're right about the moaning but I always wonder, especially with older people - and in the case of my family working class people - of not complaining and not wanting to be a bother to the doctor.

A couple of non-trivial examples, my nan was dying and in terrible pain. She'd been diagnosed some painkillers but they were too big for her to swallow. She never complained to the nurses or the doctor she just stopped taking them and her condition deteriorated rapidly. She was moved to a hospice where they put her on different painkillers (which she could take) and her condition improved hugely. She explained what had happened to a nurse there who let the hospital know. She was discharged, alive, from a hospice and able to live a while longer in far less pain.

Similarly her sister would never complain about the pain she was in, even to us. We'd tell the nurses and they knew but there's a limited amount they can do if they've got a patient who just mustn't grumble. I don't know if that's just a generational thing, or still around in younger generations of Brits.

A trivial example though is even when I go to the doctor for something and they ask me how I am I always say 'oh I'm fine'. Then embarrassed try and explain whatever my problem is in the way that's least likely to cause alarm. So maybe it's younger generation too.

Shelf, I've recently gotten my old dear out from 35 days of hospital care, the level of which would probably have bankrupted her in a few other countries.

So I ended up observing how some of the other ward patients behaved, and nearly to a women the old one's 60 plus wouldn't complain much it at all and treated the experience stoically. The two younger ones I saw, early 30s and mid-late 20s, had the nurses running all over the place at their beck and call; sometimes there'd be 3 staff dealing with their request, no matter too trivial to not need immediate attention, whilst at the same time the other 5 older patients sat/lay quietly, reading, chating, watching tv and generally trying to not make too much of a fuss.

[CountDeMoney]

Faith-based legislation for everything: US

[Valmy]

A lot of people on the rag recently.  Going to be a long winter.

I'll be ok.  Just need to make it until December so I can start sleeping more than 4 hours a night again.  I am getting really punchy.