How do you feel about U.S. policies after living abroad? Disappointed.

Moving Abroad: It can change your view of your own country’s policies. The Frau speaks from experience. When she lived in Switzerland and experienced Swiss policies personally, she was constantly contemplating and comparing them with her homeland’s. Her overall conclusion? The U.S. has a lot of catching up to do in its compassion for its people.

Lady Liberty…as seen from a road in France.

Take paid leave. The Frau never considered how important it was until she had her daughter. Sitting on the couch in her Swiss apartment seven weeks after giving birth, tears flowed constantly. She was sometimes still in pain and was also having problems feeding her daughter, who, at six pounds, still couldn’t seem to gain weight. The Frau couldn’t imagine going back to work at that point. And with Switzerland’s 16-week maternity leave (14 weeks of it were paid), she didn’t have to. In fact, by law, she couldn’t. Forever grateful for giving birth abroad, it made The Frau wonder why the U.S. is still questioning paid family and medical leave. And it also made her feel that her own country, as the only high-income country in the world not to grant paid family and medical leave to its citizens, was grossly behind in its compassion for its people. She was glad (but also, in a way, very sad) that another country treated her better as a new parent than her own would have.

Then there was healthcare. In Switzerland, health insurance is mandatory, offered by privately owned companies, and never tied to employment. The fact that health insurance is independent of work means that when someone in Switzerland loses their job, decides to try being a freelancer, decides to stay home with their children, or heck, decides travel the world for half a year, they have the ability to do so without worrying about a loss of healthcare coverage. When The Frau was laid off from her job as a copywriter in Switzerland in 2009, she never had to worry about losing her heath insurance (or paying for it, since Swiss unemployment pays a minimum of 70% of your salary for 18 months). The Swiss healthcare system gives its people a freedom that The Frau, like many Americans who have stayed in unfortunate jobs due to health insurance reasons, had never experienced.

Finally, guns. The Frau didn’t like being surrounded by so many guns in Switzerland (the Swiss are 4^th in the world in guns per capita—behind the U.S., Yemen, and Syria), but they were a part of the Swiss military and civilian responsibility, so she learned to accept them.

Switzerland has similar freedoms to the United States concerning gun ownership. Like Americans, the Swiss have gun ownership rights and the right to carry them in public. Switzerland had one mass shooting in 2001, which killed 14 and injured 18, but even after that, an anti-gun referendum failed to pass. According to a piece in Time by Helena Bachmann which sited government figures, violent crime in Switzerland is 10 times less than it is in the U.S. Maybe it helps that in Switzerland, heavy machine guns and automatic weapons are banned. Another idea a more compassionate America could adopt.

But enough about how The Frau feels after living abroad. Here’s a piece The Frau wrote for VICE last week about how other Americans feel about their own country's gun policies after living abroad.

Trying to Rationalize Emotional Questions

Many people casually ask The Frau: So are you going back to Switzerland?

They ask it in a tone you would use to ask someone what they are having for dinner.

But the answer is not as simple as dinner.

The Frau wants to say yes. Rationally, it makes sense to live in a functional democracy, rather than the broken American version, which is headed towards plutocracy.

But the truth is, The Frau doesn’t know yet.

There are still family issues to deal with as well as emotions and futures to consider.

And there are days when The Frau’s parents come over and they go to lunch together. Those days are nice. You don’t get those days overseas.

But, look, Yodelers. Let’s be honest: America is a disaster right now. Most people with an option to go back and live in a functional industrialized country should probably do it, right? There are even articles out there telling us where to move should Trump become president. (Switzerland is number one on the list.)

Here are some of the issues The Frau is struggling with:

The very American healthcare system that saves lives robs people with its greed. In fact, among Americans with health insurance, twenty percent still go bankrupt due to medical bills.

The Frau finds these statistics horrifying. She thinks the richest country in the world should be ashamed of itself.

Instead, some lawmakers push to repeal any progress that’s been made. Instead, the American government refuses to control the prices of healthcare. And prices aren’t reasonable. They’re stratospheric. They’re ridiculous. Even Americans making good salaries worry about financial ruin from health insurance plans that include ever-higher deductibles. Most plans pay 80% but leave you with 20% payments from hospitals whose bills can run in the hundred thousand to million-dollar range. To think The Frau once spent five days in a Swiss hospital and the cost was only $3,000. And Swiss insurance paid it in full. It does make one consider moving back.

Even Vice President Joe Biden worried about paying bills from his son’s bout with cancer. President Obama offered to loan him money. Yes. If our country’s leaders are struggling, what about the average American?

Healthcare is just one issue. There are many others.

The U.S. leads the world in mass shootings.

American politics is broken—even President Obama admitted this Tuesday night.

Only five corporations own the media, distorting information and therefore democracy.

The list goes on.

Look. While the Frau isn’t personally struggling, she knows that in America, it doesn’t take much to create a disaster when you’re part of a system that offers few safety nets and considers healthcare a commodity given to the highest bidder instead of a human right.

But then she looks at her daughter. And her parents. And how they play together every week. And then she cries when she thinks about moving far away again.

So. Back to that question: Are you going back to Switzerland?

Sorry, mitenand, but it’s not black and white.

It’s not rational. It’s emotional.

And it’s not a yes or no answer.

At least, not until a certain looming deadline forces it to be.

The wonder of European pharmacies

The Frau loves the European healthcare system. Especially the pharmacies. Walk in to an Italian pharmacy wearing your bathing suit and a pained expression and walk out ten minutes later with cream, bandages, and the satisfaction of knowing you survived the sting of a jellyfish and everything will be ok. No waiting, no doctors, and little expense. This was The Frau’s experience last week in Italy.

 

Pharmacy in Levanto, Italy

Which reminded her that Swiss pharmacies are as great as Italian ones. Baby M has green puss coming out of her eye at 4:56 p.m. on a Saturday? No problem. Rush to the pharmacy across the street, talk with head pharmacist for one minute, receive eye drops for CHF 7, and by Monday the pink eye is gone and Baby M can go to school and Mommy can go to work.

If this doesn’t seem great, consider the dire American alternative. The health clinic. No, you cannot just go directly to the pharmacy with your pink eye or your sting. Two hours of waiting, $400 to see a doctor for five minutes who spends more time on the computer than looking at your sore throat, and then you still have to go to the pharmacy, wait in line, and spend another $100 for medicine. It wastes time, money, and gas, since you most likely have to drive too. Please America, it's time to change from a doctor-centric society to a pharmacy-centric one. Please?

Do you love European pharmacies?