In this newsletter: A series of personal stories from Ukrainian Women, a recipe for Sausage & Polenta, my favorite jeans, the very best thing I saw on International Women's Day, how to make mitre-edged linen napkins, and lots more.
I just visited the UK, and I would feel comfortable going to Europe now. That could change depending on how this is glaze. But generally it feels like Normandy would be a safe place to come.
We just canceled our May trip to Europe. Truthfully we are a bit uneasy about the war and the possibility of things getting worse over there. We are also concerned with Covid restrictions. We are fully vaccinated/boosted and happy to wear masks but prefer to travel without the inconvenience when and if possible.
Please remember that Covid restrictions are there to protect the most vulnerable and not to inconvenience you. The only reason I felt comfortable flying to France for two months this winter was because everyone on my plane was fully vaccinated (boosted), and masks were required. I still do not feel comfortable enough to fly commercially within the US because of Americans attitudes toward masking. On an “inconvenience” scale of 1-10 I’d rate wearing a mask on an airplane as a 2. Covid is not over. People in my age group are still dying in fairly appalling numbers.
I guess I didn’t explain myself fully….I stated that I am happy wear a mask, which I am. I don’t have an attitude on masking nor would I lump an entire country into one attitude on masking or anything for that matter. I’m a caregiver and wear one daily for several hours at a time. I know, preach and enforce their effectiveness while also living with daily discomfort, although minimal is my reality. I simply meant that I will wait to travel for personal reasons until I no longer need to wear a mask.
Thanks for all these interesting links! I love hearing your take on things and tend to agree with you most of the time. As for men’s Levi’s, I’m an hourglass shape and in high school (in the ‘80s) wore mens Levi's all the time. For that price difference, I’d say they’re worth a try! Maybe google for sizing advice if you are ordering online. I tend to like some stretch in my jeans so buy other types now, but if I ever want Levi’s I think I’ll look for men’s.
Thank you for your interesting newsletter again. Yes! I would be super interested in a Design Mom retreat in Normandy! Good idea! I am living in Europe…
I find it interesting how your blurb about the repatriation of the Benin Bronzes sounds to me as a non-American reader. If I had just read this blurb without any other perspective I would have assume that this was the first major institution to return their looted Benin Bronzes and this was the going to be the template going forward. However, from other sources I know that other major institutions in other countries have already repatriated looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. And there are controversies and discussions ongoing with other countries/institutions. If memory serves me correctly (sorry, don't feel like searching to make sure I have this exactly correct) but Germany has returned some, there are smaller institutes in Britain that have returned some. The Museum of Britain is pretty firm in there absolute "no" to repatriation (see Elgin Marbles).
My major source for these new items is a history youtuber - Reading the Past and her monthly history news round ups. Which reminds me, I haven't watched the most recent one, maybe she covers the Smithsonian Benin Bronze repatriation.
I can't find the other piece I read on this repatriation, but I thought it was noteworthy because this is the largest lot of art that will repatriated to date? Would love to know the youtuber you follow for this too!
The youtube channel is Reading the Past https://www.youtube.com/c/ReadingthePast. Interesting that this may be the largest to date. The blurb as posted in the newsletter didn't emphasize that point. As a point of reference, in the latest monthly news round up posted on the YouTube channel started with two bronze pieces arriving in Nigeria from a couple of British institutions.
Regarding your question about the men's 501s. When I was a teenager (late 1960s) there were no women's jeans, and certainly no women's 501s. I bought the men's at the hardware store for $5. New. That's what they cost. My friends and I would sew up the side seams a bit to make them a little more form fitting. Not ideal, but it worked.
Same for me in the 70s and 80s, we all wore the same 501s. I know girls who put darts in the waist to make them fit better, and I remember pegging (in the seamstress sense) a pair to make the legs skinny. They weren't flattering on everybody, so I get why they now make men's/women's versions. I buy them from the men's side of the thrift store these days.
So much to unpack! I can't wait to dig into all of these links.
I own a travel business - and I'm still booking travel to Europe. Everyone has a different risk acceptance level. Clients who are avid travelers are generally willing...those who are new at this are a little more risk averse. Keep in mind that we will start seeing fuel surcharges for flights. If you're going - book soon.
What I will mention is that travel insurance does NOT cover war. At all. So...if you do this trip - make sure that all of your participants have a Cancel For Any Reason insurance policy. They can also purchase an evacuation policy in case of an emergency not related to health issues. These are relatively inexpensive for the peace of mind they provide. If they are US citizens - make sure they enroll in the SMART Traveler program so the State Department knows where they are in case of an emergency (war or otherwise) in their destination.
Can't wait to hear the details. If it's end of summer or early fall - I'd LOVE to attend!!
Loved this newsletter and the links. I'm excited for travel again and have a trip planned to Italy in two months. I think one of my concerns regarding travel is how the war is going, although Normandy is farther away, but another concern is the price of gas and inflation. Regular expenses have gotten higher and the price of plane tickets seems to be escalating astronomically (thank goodness I bought my ticket a long time ago).
On a more fun note, I would absolutely buy the men's Levis and have them tailored to your exact specs. You're probably still spending less than $100 in the end.
Love these links so much! There's an interesting podcast episode on the Benin Bronzes from Stuff the British Stole. I think it's the episode called Blood Art from season 1.
Also, we're hoping to be in Europe in September for a family wedding, and while, at this stage, we're still planning to try and go, we're keeping a VERY close eye on what's happening in Ukraine and we're not willing to book flights just yet. The idea of a Design Mom retreat sounds amazing though.
re: your fury over universal healthcare: Free market systems like ours yield more inequalities but also exponentially more experiments. Socialist systems are egalitarian but with significant cost to innovation. Many european countries have cheaper drugs than we do, but dramatically less drug development. The life expectancy on the chart of european countries is directly correlated to being beneficiaries of american bio-tech/pharma innovation (the same goes for military; they piggyback on our technology and strength). Whatever everyday health coverage is worth to a sick person, a cure for a heretofore-incurable disease is worth more. As a cancer patient, you'll have more to gain from a single drug that sends your disease into remission than a universal plan that covers a hundred drugs that don't. Americans don't want universal healthcare because it is the WORST system in regards to freedom of choice and healthcare quality. The primary benefit of universal healthcare--as is so often recounted by its supporters--is that it is cheap. Making healthcare affordable is easy. Making healthcare affordable that high-quality is difficult. Making healthcare affordable that is high-quality and on-demand such that most Americans expect it is impossible. I've not seen any evidence that the government can solve a problem as formidable as this one in system as complex as ours just because we want to make it so.
Except that the US is not in fact responsible for a disproportionate amount of innovation in the pharmaceutical realm. Despite what those against universal health care would have you believe. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866602/
Overall, in healthcare science and technology (which would include pharma, but not just pharma), the US comes out on top to second-place Denmark by a margin that is by far the highest recorded in any dimension of the World Index of Healthcare Innovation. The U.S. ranked first in the number of new drugs & medical devices gaining regulatory approval; first by a wide margin in Nobel prizes in chemistry or medicine per capita; second in scientific impact as measured by citations. And it does this while only ranking fourth in R&D expenditures per capita.
Did you read the article you linked to? The section on Science & Technology that you are referring never attempts to connect the research and innovation costs to high U.S. healthcare costs.
The article also say says:
"The U.S. ranked first for Choice, driven by Americans’ world-leading access to new medical technologies, and the growing role of choice in private health coverage. However, the U.S. ranked last on affordability of health insurance, due to its extremely high health care prices. Choices are most meaningful when care is affordable."
In case you're not getting it, it's saying choice isn't actually choice if you can't afford the choices. So the U.S. is only ranked first for Choice if you are an incredibly wealthy person. If I'm told: "here are ten excellent ambulance companies you can choose from," but I can't afford any of their services, then that's not actually a choice. And you know that.
We read stories from real people every day who have gone bankrupt because of U.S. healthcare. And it's not because they were irresponsible. These are people who have health insurance, who have full-time employment for 40 years and counting, and who have had to wipe out their entire retirement savings to treat their wife's cancer. It's not okay to defend this system.
I don't know you "weekonthecape", and maybe I'm way off base, but this feels like it was copied and pasted from a right-wing facebook post.
Where are you getting the idea that the high cost of healthcare in the U.S. is mostly due to innovation and research? That very much sounds like American Exceptionalism, which is gross. America is great, but it's not nearly as great as many Americans have been lead to believe. And I've never seen data that innovation and research is the main reason, or even a significant reason, that U.S. healthcare costs are so high.
It's been widely reported that the reason healthcare in the U.S. is so expensive is because it's a for-profit insurance system, and because of an insane proportion of admin costs. Here's one article:
And when you say this: "Americans don't want universal healthcare because it is the WORST system in regards to freedom of choice and healthcare quality," it sounds like complete nonsense. If that statement is true at all, it's only true for the very wealthiest in the country.
Again, I don't know you, and maybe you have lived in a country with universal healthcare and have some personal baggage, but you are promoting lots of misinformation.
You think Americans have quality healthcare on demand? In the very wealthy Bay Area, we had 3 month waits, at least, to get a basic well-child doctor visit. And our co-pay, after incredibly expensive monthly insurance payment (high enough that it could pay for a mortgage in most places), was $100 for that visit. In France, I can easily make well child doctor's appointment for the next day and the cost is 20 euros *without* insurance. If you do have a French social security number (which is basically how they do their healthcare), you pay 20 euros for the visit, and then get reimbursed that full amount. And the quality of care is excellent — every bit as attentive as our care in the U.S., and far less busied and stressful.
Your defense of the status quo is bewildering to me. If you can't see any evidence that a government can solve a problem like universal healthcare, then you are willfully closing your eyes and ignoring every other country who has managed to solve this problem. And you don't even have to look at other countries. Here's evidence in the U.S. (from the article I linked to earlier in this comment):
"A recent study found that in 2017, administrative costs made up 34.2% of health care costs in the U.S., twice the percentage in Canada, which has a decentralized, publicly funded system. Medicare, the country's national health insurance program for Americans 65 and older, has much lower administrative costs, between 1.1 and 7%."
There are many ways to do universal healthcare. In my country (Israel) we have universal healthcare, but it isn’t completely centralised. There are 4 approved HMOs—this promotes competition but interestingly enough there isn’t one that’s better than the others or one that’s worse. From what I can tell it tends to be a regional thing. In my in-laws’ city HMO A is really popular but in my city HMO B has the most clinics and is more convenient to belong to. You are free to leave your HMO at any time, and most have supplemental insurance that covers extra. Example: I pay under 30 dollars a month to have an extensive dental plan beyond the one free visit and cleaning annually I get as part of the basic package. Oh, and they aren’t allowed to not insure you. It is your right to have free healthcare.
There is also additional private insurance. My husband has this through this job, but we don’t pay for it. This allowed me to see a private pelvic floor therapist after birth f(enables me to get an appointment sooner) for free and get things like my doula reimbursed.
So this “universal healthcare” that you speak of as being 1 system doesn’t exist. All it means is that everyone is entitled to healthcare for free; the specifics vary country to country.
Also want to add that Israel is a leading country when it comes to innovation in the healthcare field. For example, an Israeli doctor recently pioneered a new c-section technique and has travelled to the US to teach OBs how to perform it. :)
My one argument against yours is my experience having free universal health care my entire life in my country, Brazil, and knowing for a fact that the best cardio transplant hospitals, for example, are all public. I repeat: ALL PUBLIC! Not to mention that insulin is free, hemodialysis is free, chemotherapy is free etc. Our model of universal health care has been used as an example all over, including Canada. Anyways, it works! It saves lives in so many different levels. I can only see this reluctance as I see so many other things in Americans: an extreme sense of selfishness.
*laughs in german, after getting a vaccine for my next travels and going to the dentist and the gynecologist just this week without even seeing a bill, because the doctors sent it directly to my health insurance for which I pay 200€ a month*
Weekonthecape - I wish it were true, that our exorbitant $$ spent here in the US in healthcare actually caused innovation. It just isn’t. The two things are unrelated. This is a common talking point to use an excuse not to move to universal coverage with no basis in reality.
Even if that was true, how is it that all these innovative drugs make Americans die earlier than people of other western countries? Isn't that the whole point of innovative drugs? To extend life expectancy?
Yes, our healthcare system is horribly broken. I am the former COO of a nonprofit outpatient behavioral healthcare hospital, the largest such organization in our region. Our goal was to provide affordable services to all. We employed a sliding fee scale whereby individuals who couldn't afford to pay received care for free. We turned no one away, and treated all who came to our doors regardless of whether they paid or not. And, after providing care, we didn't badger patients with mysterious bills or lawsuits. How did we do this? We didn't sacrifice patient services in exchange for executive compensation. As an example, a competing healthcare organization paid its CEO $18M a year, whereas our CEO earned $200k/year. When we pay healthcare executives salaries in the millions, we are indicating that patients are not our priority. While I was working in my healthcare role, my husband contracted viral meningitis for which he received treatment at a local hospital. In spite of our employer-paid healthcare insurance, his treatment incurred out-of-pocket costs of $60k, and it took us years to pay back. Others are not as fortunate, and must declare bankruptcy because of medical debt. My city hosts a medical center containing the "best hospitals in the country," yet our region ranks last in US healthcare access, meaning that people are unable to receive care due to lack of affordability. Choice is not choice if people cannot afford it.
As someone based in Germany, I don't plan to stop traveling within the EU. I probably won't be visiting my friends in Poland right now (in order to keep space open on trains and hotels for refugees) but I don't see the issue.
As for the jeans, have you looked at Vinted? I believe it exists in France as well, and it's a secondhand website where people sell clothes and shoes. I've seen lots of Levis on there.
My husband and I are traveling to Holland, Belgium and France end of June/beginning of July for our 10th wedding anniversary. I’m not concerned for my own safety while traveling, however it is hard to enjoy oneself and not feel guilty if you do knowing all the trauma that’s being endured on the same continent. In the states wars are fought in far off lands, it’ll be an interesting experience being closer to the conflict. That being said, I have 3 days in Paris, one of which is 14 July. What would you plan for someone who’s never been?
I just visited the UK, and I would feel comfortable going to Europe now. That could change depending on how this is glaze. But generally it feels like Normandy would be a safe place to come.
We just canceled our May trip to Europe. Truthfully we are a bit uneasy about the war and the possibility of things getting worse over there. We are also concerned with Covid restrictions. We are fully vaccinated/boosted and happy to wear masks but prefer to travel without the inconvenience when and if possible.
Please remember that Covid restrictions are there to protect the most vulnerable and not to inconvenience you. The only reason I felt comfortable flying to France for two months this winter was because everyone on my plane was fully vaccinated (boosted), and masks were required. I still do not feel comfortable enough to fly commercially within the US because of Americans attitudes toward masking. On an “inconvenience” scale of 1-10 I’d rate wearing a mask on an airplane as a 2. Covid is not over. People in my age group are still dying in fairly appalling numbers.
I guess I didn’t explain myself fully….I stated that I am happy wear a mask, which I am. I don’t have an attitude on masking nor would I lump an entire country into one attitude on masking or anything for that matter. I’m a caregiver and wear one daily for several hours at a time. I know, preach and enforce their effectiveness while also living with daily discomfort, although minimal is my reality. I simply meant that I will wait to travel for personal reasons until I no longer need to wear a mask.
Thanks for all these interesting links! I love hearing your take on things and tend to agree with you most of the time. As for men’s Levi’s, I’m an hourglass shape and in high school (in the ‘80s) wore mens Levi's all the time. For that price difference, I’d say they’re worth a try! Maybe google for sizing advice if you are ordering online. I tend to like some stretch in my jeans so buy other types now, but if I ever want Levi’s I think I’ll look for men’s.
Thank you for your interesting newsletter again. Yes! I would be super interested in a Design Mom retreat in Normandy! Good idea! I am living in Europe…
In response to #3
I find it interesting how your blurb about the repatriation of the Benin Bronzes sounds to me as a non-American reader. If I had just read this blurb without any other perspective I would have assume that this was the first major institution to return their looted Benin Bronzes and this was the going to be the template going forward. However, from other sources I know that other major institutions in other countries have already repatriated looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. And there are controversies and discussions ongoing with other countries/institutions. If memory serves me correctly (sorry, don't feel like searching to make sure I have this exactly correct) but Germany has returned some, there are smaller institutes in Britain that have returned some. The Museum of Britain is pretty firm in there absolute "no" to repatriation (see Elgin Marbles).
My major source for these new items is a history youtuber - Reading the Past and her monthly history news round ups. Which reminds me, I haven't watched the most recent one, maybe she covers the Smithsonian Benin Bronze repatriation.
I can't find the other piece I read on this repatriation, but I thought it was noteworthy because this is the largest lot of art that will repatriated to date? Would love to know the youtuber you follow for this too!
The youtube channel is Reading the Past https://www.youtube.com/c/ReadingthePast. Interesting that this may be the largest to date. The blurb as posted in the newsletter didn't emphasize that point. As a point of reference, in the latest monthly news round up posted on the YouTube channel started with two bronze pieces arriving in Nigeria from a couple of British institutions.
Thank you! I've subscribed so I can watch them when I get a few minutes. :)
Regarding your question about the men's 501s. When I was a teenager (late 1960s) there were no women's jeans, and certainly no women's 501s. I bought the men's at the hardware store for $5. New. That's what they cost. My friends and I would sew up the side seams a bit to make them a little more form fitting. Not ideal, but it worked.
Same for me in the 70s and 80s, we all wore the same 501s. I know girls who put darts in the waist to make them fit better, and I remember pegging (in the seamstress sense) a pair to make the legs skinny. They weren't flattering on everybody, so I get why they now make men's/women's versions. I buy them from the men's side of the thrift store these days.
So much to unpack! I can't wait to dig into all of these links.
I own a travel business - and I'm still booking travel to Europe. Everyone has a different risk acceptance level. Clients who are avid travelers are generally willing...those who are new at this are a little more risk averse. Keep in mind that we will start seeing fuel surcharges for flights. If you're going - book soon.
What I will mention is that travel insurance does NOT cover war. At all. So...if you do this trip - make sure that all of your participants have a Cancel For Any Reason insurance policy. They can also purchase an evacuation policy in case of an emergency not related to health issues. These are relatively inexpensive for the peace of mind they provide. If they are US citizens - make sure they enroll in the SMART Traveler program so the State Department knows where they are in case of an emergency (war or otherwise) in their destination.
Can't wait to hear the details. If it's end of summer or early fall - I'd LOVE to attend!!
We're going to Rome in a couple of weeks despite the war. I'd be interested in a DM retreat.
Love this newsletter! and YES to a Normandy Retreat this summer. Thank you! xoxo
Loved this newsletter and the links. I'm excited for travel again and have a trip planned to Italy in two months. I think one of my concerns regarding travel is how the war is going, although Normandy is farther away, but another concern is the price of gas and inflation. Regular expenses have gotten higher and the price of plane tickets seems to be escalating astronomically (thank goodness I bought my ticket a long time ago).
On a more fun note, I would absolutely buy the men's Levis and have them tailored to your exact specs. You're probably still spending less than $100 in the end.
I'm already in Europe - count me in!
Love these links so much! There's an interesting podcast episode on the Benin Bronzes from Stuff the British Stole. I think it's the episode called Blood Art from season 1.
Also, we're hoping to be in Europe in September for a family wedding, and while, at this stage, we're still planning to try and go, we're keeping a VERY close eye on what's happening in Ukraine and we're not willing to book flights just yet. The idea of a Design Mom retreat sounds amazing though.
re: your fury over universal healthcare: Free market systems like ours yield more inequalities but also exponentially more experiments. Socialist systems are egalitarian but with significant cost to innovation. Many european countries have cheaper drugs than we do, but dramatically less drug development. The life expectancy on the chart of european countries is directly correlated to being beneficiaries of american bio-tech/pharma innovation (the same goes for military; they piggyback on our technology and strength). Whatever everyday health coverage is worth to a sick person, a cure for a heretofore-incurable disease is worth more. As a cancer patient, you'll have more to gain from a single drug that sends your disease into remission than a universal plan that covers a hundred drugs that don't. Americans don't want universal healthcare because it is the WORST system in regards to freedom of choice and healthcare quality. The primary benefit of universal healthcare--as is so often recounted by its supporters--is that it is cheap. Making healthcare affordable is easy. Making healthcare affordable that high-quality is difficult. Making healthcare affordable that is high-quality and on-demand such that most Americans expect it is impossible. I've not seen any evidence that the government can solve a problem as formidable as this one in system as complex as ours just because we want to make it so.
Except that the US is not in fact responsible for a disproportionate amount of innovation in the pharmaceutical realm. Despite what those against universal health care would have you believe. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866602/
Overall, in healthcare science and technology (which would include pharma, but not just pharma), the US comes out on top to second-place Denmark by a margin that is by far the highest recorded in any dimension of the World Index of Healthcare Innovation. The U.S. ranked first in the number of new drugs & medical devices gaining regulatory approval; first by a wide margin in Nobel prizes in chemistry or medicine per capita; second in scientific impact as measured by citations. And it does this while only ranking fourth in R&D expenditures per capita.
https://freopp.org/united-states-health-system-profile-4-in-the-world-index-of-healthcare-innovation-b593ba15a96
Did you read the article you linked to? The section on Science & Technology that you are referring never attempts to connect the research and innovation costs to high U.S. healthcare costs.
The article also say says:
"The U.S. ranked first for Choice, driven by Americans’ world-leading access to new medical technologies, and the growing role of choice in private health coverage. However, the U.S. ranked last on affordability of health insurance, due to its extremely high health care prices. Choices are most meaningful when care is affordable."
In case you're not getting it, it's saying choice isn't actually choice if you can't afford the choices. So the U.S. is only ranked first for Choice if you are an incredibly wealthy person. If I'm told: "here are ten excellent ambulance companies you can choose from," but I can't afford any of their services, then that's not actually a choice. And you know that.
We read stories from real people every day who have gone bankrupt because of U.S. healthcare. And it's not because they were irresponsible. These are people who have health insurance, who have full-time employment for 40 years and counting, and who have had to wipe out their entire retirement savings to treat their wife's cancer. It's not okay to defend this system.
I don't know you "weekonthecape", and maybe I'm way off base, but this feels like it was copied and pasted from a right-wing facebook post.
Where are you getting the idea that the high cost of healthcare in the U.S. is mostly due to innovation and research? That very much sounds like American Exceptionalism, which is gross. America is great, but it's not nearly as great as many Americans have been lead to believe. And I've never seen data that innovation and research is the main reason, or even a significant reason, that U.S. healthcare costs are so high.
It's been widely reported that the reason healthcare in the U.S. is so expensive is because it's a for-profit insurance system, and because of an insane proportion of admin costs. Here's one article:
https://www.today.com/tmrw/why-healthcare-so-expensive-united-states-t192119
And when you say this: "Americans don't want universal healthcare because it is the WORST system in regards to freedom of choice and healthcare quality," it sounds like complete nonsense. If that statement is true at all, it's only true for the very wealthiest in the country.
Again, I don't know you, and maybe you have lived in a country with universal healthcare and have some personal baggage, but you are promoting lots of misinformation.
You think Americans have quality healthcare on demand? In the very wealthy Bay Area, we had 3 month waits, at least, to get a basic well-child doctor visit. And our co-pay, after incredibly expensive monthly insurance payment (high enough that it could pay for a mortgage in most places), was $100 for that visit. In France, I can easily make well child doctor's appointment for the next day and the cost is 20 euros *without* insurance. If you do have a French social security number (which is basically how they do their healthcare), you pay 20 euros for the visit, and then get reimbursed that full amount. And the quality of care is excellent — every bit as attentive as our care in the U.S., and far less busied and stressful.
Your defense of the status quo is bewildering to me. If you can't see any evidence that a government can solve a problem like universal healthcare, then you are willfully closing your eyes and ignoring every other country who has managed to solve this problem. And you don't even have to look at other countries. Here's evidence in the U.S. (from the article I linked to earlier in this comment):
"A recent study found that in 2017, administrative costs made up 34.2% of health care costs in the U.S., twice the percentage in Canada, which has a decentralized, publicly funded system. Medicare, the country's national health insurance program for Americans 65 and older, has much lower administrative costs, between 1.1 and 7%."
There are many ways to do universal healthcare. In my country (Israel) we have universal healthcare, but it isn’t completely centralised. There are 4 approved HMOs—this promotes competition but interestingly enough there isn’t one that’s better than the others or one that’s worse. From what I can tell it tends to be a regional thing. In my in-laws’ city HMO A is really popular but in my city HMO B has the most clinics and is more convenient to belong to. You are free to leave your HMO at any time, and most have supplemental insurance that covers extra. Example: I pay under 30 dollars a month to have an extensive dental plan beyond the one free visit and cleaning annually I get as part of the basic package. Oh, and they aren’t allowed to not insure you. It is your right to have free healthcare.
There is also additional private insurance. My husband has this through this job, but we don’t pay for it. This allowed me to see a private pelvic floor therapist after birth f(enables me to get an appointment sooner) for free and get things like my doula reimbursed.
So this “universal healthcare” that you speak of as being 1 system doesn’t exist. All it means is that everyone is entitled to healthcare for free; the specifics vary country to country.
Also want to add that Israel is a leading country when it comes to innovation in the healthcare field. For example, an Israeli doctor recently pioneered a new c-section technique and has travelled to the US to teach OBs how to perform it. :)
My one argument against yours is my experience having free universal health care my entire life in my country, Brazil, and knowing for a fact that the best cardio transplant hospitals, for example, are all public. I repeat: ALL PUBLIC! Not to mention that insulin is free, hemodialysis is free, chemotherapy is free etc. Our model of universal health care has been used as an example all over, including Canada. Anyways, it works! It saves lives in so many different levels. I can only see this reluctance as I see so many other things in Americans: an extreme sense of selfishness.
*laughs in german, after getting a vaccine for my next travels and going to the dentist and the gynecologist just this week without even seeing a bill, because the doctors sent it directly to my health insurance for which I pay 200€ a month*
Weekonthecape - I wish it were true, that our exorbitant $$ spent here in the US in healthcare actually caused innovation. It just isn’t. The two things are unrelated. This is a common talking point to use an excuse not to move to universal coverage with no basis in reality.
Even if that was true, how is it that all these innovative drugs make Americans die earlier than people of other western countries? Isn't that the whole point of innovative drugs? To extend life expectancy?
Yes, our healthcare system is horribly broken. I am the former COO of a nonprofit outpatient behavioral healthcare hospital, the largest such organization in our region. Our goal was to provide affordable services to all. We employed a sliding fee scale whereby individuals who couldn't afford to pay received care for free. We turned no one away, and treated all who came to our doors regardless of whether they paid or not. And, after providing care, we didn't badger patients with mysterious bills or lawsuits. How did we do this? We didn't sacrifice patient services in exchange for executive compensation. As an example, a competing healthcare organization paid its CEO $18M a year, whereas our CEO earned $200k/year. When we pay healthcare executives salaries in the millions, we are indicating that patients are not our priority. While I was working in my healthcare role, my husband contracted viral meningitis for which he received treatment at a local hospital. In spite of our employer-paid healthcare insurance, his treatment incurred out-of-pocket costs of $60k, and it took us years to pay back. Others are not as fortunate, and must declare bankruptcy because of medical debt. My city hosts a medical center containing the "best hospitals in the country," yet our region ranks last in US healthcare access, meaning that people are unable to receive care due to lack of affordability. Choice is not choice if people cannot afford it.
As someone based in Germany, I don't plan to stop traveling within the EU. I probably won't be visiting my friends in Poland right now (in order to keep space open on trains and hotels for refugees) but I don't see the issue.
As for the jeans, have you looked at Vinted? I believe it exists in France as well, and it's a secondhand website where people sell clothes and shoes. I've seen lots of Levis on there.
I would be super interested in a Design Mom retreat in Normandy in the fall. But I am living in Europe…
My husband and I are traveling to Holland, Belgium and France end of June/beginning of July for our 10th wedding anniversary. I’m not concerned for my own safety while traveling, however it is hard to enjoy oneself and not feel guilty if you do knowing all the trauma that’s being endured on the same continent. In the states wars are fought in far off lands, it’ll be an interesting experience being closer to the conflict. That being said, I have 3 days in Paris, one of which is 14 July. What would you plan for someone who’s never been?