"forcing governments to take their wellbeing seriously"

I have a lot to say -- entirely positive -- about living in South Korea during the ongoing coronavirus epidemic.  Sure, it was scary at first, and my sleep schedule is probably shot for the rest of 2020 at best.  But living here and seeing what an effective government response looks like, and what a fully-functional, first-world health care system should be, has been an eye-opener.  This piece by Tae Hoon Kim in The Guardian gets to the point:

"The restoration of democracy in 1987 did not change this state-led economic model and infrastructure management. What changed, however, was the attitude of the people. The toppling of the military dictatorship in 1987 was the result of a series of nationwide protests. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, South Korea saw numerous mass civil protests against a wide range of issues, from the import of US beef to government mismanagement of a ferry accident in 2014. The apex of this mass mobilisation were the demonstrations against the previous resident, Park Geun-hye. The protests continued from October 2016 to March 2017. On 3 December 2016, an estimated 2.3 million people took to the streets, almost 4% of the entire population. These subsequently led to Park’s impeachment and imprisonment.

Korean politics since the 1990s can thus be characterised as a period during which citizens became increasingly emboldened in their relationship with the state, forcing governments to take their wellbeing seriously. One area that this has been the most conspicuous is in public transportation, energy and healthcare. For the average person, these are everyday services that all citizens have the right to enjoy, and which are paid for by taxpayers’ money. To put it in more utilitarian terms, they are the most tangible barometers with which to judge the government’s commitment to its citizens. Failure to improve their qualities and manage them properly almost always leads to a loss of votes for the ruling party in upcoming elections."

Korean history is nothing if not complex.  But no doubt a country that has high expectations for its leaders, and is willing to hold them to account when they fuck up, is the defining characteristic of a healthy, functioning democracy.

The thing is, South Korea is hardly a den of Bernie supporters (or the rough Asian-Socialist equivalent).  I have friends (usually older, but still) who will routinely bitch about "Reds" in both the government and the dreaded, hated labor unions.  (A lot of his comes from right-wing indoctrination during two years of compulsory military service.)

But still, even the most right-wing Korean politician would get booed / laughed off the stage if they suggested privatizing the health care system or subways and buses.

Which is to say, the only thing preventing America from finally joining the rest of the industrialized world and putting a national health system in place is a lack of imagination.  An imagination of what's possible (as demonstrated by literally every other rich country in the world) and an imagination of who the government should serve -- the citizens, not the markets.