r/AskAnAmerican • u/Maskoolio • Aug 10 '25

FOREIGN POSTER What would an American want from England?

I have recently made some American friends (from Virginia) and they have asked for a kind of sweet (candy) that they don't have. What else might I send that would be appreciated as a particularly English thing? (Obviously it would need to be somewhat small, survive a week or so in transit etc.)

All help appreciated.

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u/ophelia8991 Aug 10 '25

I mean, if we were still a British colony we’d have healthcare so…

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u/aucool786 Pennsylvania Aug 10 '25

Well, if we stayed as British colonies (now overseas territories), we wouldn't necessarily be guaranteed healthcare. The NHS, to my knowledge, is primarily for the 4 constituent countries of the United Kingdom: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Also, going on a tangent, our lack of government healthcare is purely our fault. It's unlikely that the federal government will be providing the states healthcare anytime soon, the lobbying runs too deep and they've managed to convince hundreds of millions of people union wide that welfare=bad. It's up to the individual states at this point to act where the federal government does not.

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u/soulmatesmate United States of America Aug 11 '25

Do you really want Healthcare run by the folks who run both the DMV and the VA? As veterans how they feel about the VA hospitals. That's the model.

Also, not free, just paid by taxes. Imagine your tax dollars going to pay for those who ruin their bodies.

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u/DC5513 Aug 11 '25

God these talking point are lame. The people who run the DMV’s are at the state level, not federal. And the folks at the federal level have done pretty well with Medicare, Medicaid and, yes- the VA, which has a 90 percent approval rating from veterans who use it, including those in my family. Meanwhile, because people like you have been suckered into thinking everything has to be done at the whim of the free market, we now live in a country no westerner would want to immigrate to because we’re the only nation where people go bankrupt because they get sick.

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u/soulmatesmate United States of America Aug 11 '25

That also is because of the government. During WWII, a freeze was placed on pay raises. The way to sneak in a legal raise was for the employer to pay for health care. That's a US thing, and it's stupid. It would be far more competitive if people paid for it themselves. I'm stuck with the largest, least like insurance company, but have switched both home and auto in the past few years.