American exceptionalism

We are frequently exhorted to appreciate fully American exceptionalism. We are, indeed, an exceptional country.

All other advanced nations provide universal health care with little or no cost. We are exceptional with tens of millions of our people having no health care, no health care coverage. Emergency rooms can do little for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Often the alternative is bankruptcy and/or death. We are exceptionally high in obesity rates.

We are the richest country, perhaps in history, yet we have the highest poverty rate of all advanced nations. Exceptional.

We are the only democracy in the world in which the candidate receiving the most votes does not win. Exceptional. And weird. The other democracies think we are crazy and undemocratic.

Our infant mortality rate is exceptionally high. The disparity in income in the United States is greater than in other nations. Exceptional.

Taxes paid by our people are exceptionally lower than in any other advanced nation.

One in every four of our physicians is foreign. Whereas other countries train all the doctors they need at a fraction of the cost in the U.S., we are the exception. We do not, cannot, train enough doctors because we don’t have enough medical schools and the cost is prohibitively, exceptionally, high. We rely on other countries to train many of our doctors.

In the U.S., there are 32,000 to 33,000 gun deaths each and every year. This is truly exceptional. No other country comes anywhere near our gun violence.

Ours is, indeed, a fabulous country where many, even most, have a good life. We may be the luckiest people on Earth. It’s the exceptions I worry about. Exceptionalism can be disturbing.

Anne Hintz Oshkosh