Questions 5! Travels and politics.

How do you think we in the US can get a good health care system like Sweden and other evolved countries have?

Well, my knowledge about the US health care system stems from such reliable sources as "E.R" and "Grey's Anatomy", so it might be that I'm not really in possession of all the facts. But off the top of my head I'd say tax funded health care for everyone in the country.

Skip this insurance stuff and pay for it with tax money and agree that everybody is a person, that a society that leaves people dying from treatable illnesses because they're poor is a rather crappy society, and that everybody benefits from some basic things like school and health care being accessible to everyone.

Oh, and this "mal practice suit"-thingy where doctors and hospital administrators go around being afraid of being sued for crazy amounts of money seems really strange to me too. Again, I'm not sure if I have it right, but if I have the right idea about it, it seems really really ineffective. 

In Sweden you file a complaint to the proper authorities and they investigate and if someone's been maltreated the doctor can lose his or her license and employment, and if there's something wrong with hospital procedure's they are forced to change them. But the hospital doesn't have to spend millions of tax money on insurance against being sued or paying off people who has complains. But then again, our health care are tax funded, not businesses, I guess that makes a difference.

On the other hand, the last eight years the (right wing) government has made a lot of changes to our health care system, which for one thing has led to hospitals and other health care facilities starting to act like businesses, and venture capitalists getting revenue from them, that is tax money going to off shore accounts belonging to already wealthy businessmen. I can't wrap my head around how anyone could think that would be a good idea, but obviously more than half of the Swedish population did, because they voted for them (twice, as a matter of fact).

Would you ever like to move to another country?

If I would, it would be to Scotland. I could easily imagine living in Scotland, and Mistress was actually about to apply for a job in a town called Pitlochry in the Highlands a couple of years ago. It didn't come to anything, but we could definitely move there, if the circumstances were right. But I have no drive to move abroad just for the sake of it, no. I like Sweden, and if I would want to move it would have to be because the other place has something really good to offer in terms of quality of life one way or the other. (But Mistress is where my home is - she could take me anywhere in the world and I'd gladly follow her. Not likely though, since I think she likes it just fine here.)

It pisses me off though that there's a lot of places in the world I wouldn't dare move to with my family because we wouldn't be welcome. It's not as if we could go to Russia anytime soon, for example. Not that I would want to, particularly, but it sucks that we can't.Or almost anywhere in Africa, and big parts of Asia.

My father is something of a globetrotter, and he rubs me the wrong way sometimes with making light of how easy it is to fit in and "when in Rome" and so on. It's easy for him to say, as an older white male. He belongs to the most privileged demographic on the planet - for him going to Togo, West Africa for a month isn't really the same thing as if me and Mistress would do it. But I don't think he realises that, and it bugs me at times.

Have you been to visit the US or would you like to some day? 

I've never been, but I would love to. Ever since I read a blog where a thirty-something Swedish writer described how she rented an apartment in  New York for a month and vacationed there with her husband and their two little kids I've been thinking we should do the same. I'd love to have a kid-friendly place to stay and then explore things in a slow pace, not running around rushing things but going into it with a kids eyes, going back to favourite places as much as we'd like, just enjoying the place and the rythm and the experience of making a everyday living somewhere else. That's a dream vacation of mine.

Another dream place to visit is San Fransisco, not the least because of it's gay history. And redwood trees. I'd love to see redwoods. I also have a cousin who lives with his wifes and two teenage girls in Alaska, and I'd love to go there. My mom went there last year, and I was insanely jealous of her. I want to see grizzly bears! Or not, as the case may be. She didn't, actually, and she described how she and my cousin had been out with the car somewhere and he'd said something about there being a risk of grizzly's being around and she'd been all "oh, a chance to see one you mean?".