Stop saying the U.S. is a third world country

Seriously, I see someone on social media every week saying this.

We all acknowledge that the U.S. has problems. But it’s a fallacy to go from “The U.S. has problems” to “The U.S. is a third world nation.” I’ve never seen anyone close that gap. And that simplest explanation is because the U.S. is not a third world nation. If it was, we would expect to find evidence everywhere for that claim — we don’t; therefore, the U.S. is not a third world nation.

In addition, we would expect to not see things that we do see. If the U.S. was a third world nation, we would expect to see an economy that’s not even developed — akin to a lot of countries in Africa. We don’t see that because the U.S. is not a third world nation.

Once again, I grant that there are certain things that are problematic in the U.S., such as the U.S. still not having a version of universal healthcare (which from my research, this seems to be a historical fluke). By the way, the U.S. did get closer to universal healthcare under Obamacare. And it must be remembered that universal healthcare includes private vs public insurance, single-payer vs. multi-payer, socialized medicine vs. non-socialized medicine, etc. In addition to the ACA passed in 2010, the U.S. also has Medicare, Medicaid, VA, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). So, the U.S. is a melting pot of different types of healthcare.

I think the most straight-forward path to universal healthcare in the U.S. is expanding the ACA to…