Yes, we're exceptional, but for some pretty goofy stuff

I think I finally understand what some people call "American Exceptionalism."

It isn't about something we do that makes us exceptional. It's about the things we don't do.

We may be the only so-called free country in the world where it's all about the Benjamins. In every other democracy or republic in the world, part of what comes right along with living there is health care. It isn't free. They pay for it with their taxes and it doesn't always cover anything.

Indeed, in France, which is rated as the best health care system in the world, taxes pay for 70 percent and many people buy supplemental private insurance to cover the next 20 percent. The patient pays the final 10 percent, up to a point, but nobody goes without necessary care.

Here we get guys like this schmuck running for the senate from New Jersey, who says don't look to him for your health care. He probably won't win, but there are too many people like him, and most of them prattle on about how we have the "Best Health Care in the World."

Pardon my French, Steve, but that's horseshit.

Yes, if money is no object, you can get pretty fine health care here. But please, tell me how many people you know for whom money is no object. My wife and I are blessed with financial security and good insurance, so the spinal surgery and other things we went through last year were mostly paid.

I added it all up once, and I think it would have cost us $150,000 or so if we had to pay everything. We didn't, but the $22,000 or so we spent on all medical stuff last year would literally have hammered a lot of people who aren't as well off as we are.

When my wife and I went to Tahiti in 1999, Nicole broke her wrist in a motor scooter accident. We went to the hospital, where she had X-rays and treatment for her wrist and I had precautionary X-rays for my neck and lower back.

Total cost to us?

Zip.

Yes, she has dual citizenship (Tahiti is part of French Polynesia), but I don't.

Are we exceptional here? Damn right we are. In the United States, plenty of people don't get the health care they need because they can't pay for it. Little wonder that the World Health Organization ranked us 37th in the world in 2011. Maybe Obamacare will help. It sure can't hurt. We're below frigging Cuba.

Oh, yeah. France is first.

Think about vacations. Many American workers don't accrue vacation time at all, and the average full-time employee in our country takes less than two weeks a year.

In France, as in most of Europe, everyone gets 4-6 weeks a year. Those lazy Euros, right? Actually, they've done studies that show that giving people time off, usually in the summer, to recharge their batteries actually makes them more productive the rest of the year.

We could talk about so much more. Better retirement, cheaper education, but I don't want anyone tearing their hair out.

What's the big difference? Honestly?

Well, most of their rich people don't live as high off the hog as ours do, and we have more things than they do -- bigger cars, bigger televisions, etc. But be honest, does that 80-inch 3-D television with Sensurround make up for poor health insurance, little or no vacation time and all the rest?

Not hardly, pilgrim.

It seems to me we're living less than we ought to be just so idiots like Donald Trump can have solid gold bathroom fixtures, and that's not right. I think we did it best during the Eisenhower Era, when folks could make just as much money as they wanted, but once they got about a certain level, their taxes went way up.

It's different now, but is that really what we want to be known as exceptional for?

The richest rich people in the world?

Damn, they don't even give medals for that.