As George Carlin said, “The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

For example.

At this precise moment, my mother's long-term care insurance provider suggests that she's benefited so greatly from the care available for her in assisted living, for which the insurer reimburses us, that it is considering erasing the benefit. It isn't yet a "done" deal, and there may be a satisfactory resolution, though not until after significant stress for all of us.

This wouldn't occur in Norway, Denmark or Sweden, would it? I'm starting to get resentful about that drunken, errant stork.

After I Lived in Norway, America Felt Backward. Here’s Why.

A crash course in social democracy, by Ann Jones (The Nation)

... Norway, Denmark, and Sweden practice variations of a system that works much better than ours. Yet even the Democratic presidential candidates, who say they love or want to learn from those countries, don’t seem know how they actually work.