This is all pretty interesting, and here are my random thoughts, in no particular order.
1. Boy, Americans are often in the Protestant work ethic "WORK HARD" and "WORK HARDER" mindset. You really can't get away from it. Whether you are talking about health care, or paying for college, or food, the answer is WORK HARDER. Because I put myself through college working 5 part time jobs, and my family works 60 hours a week per person to pay for health care so that you can get it for free. And if you just WORK HARDER you won't be so damned poor. Nevermind that people have different abilities, strengths, mental states, etc.
2. I can see why someone would be pissed at paying $1000/month for insurance with a $12k deductible for a family when you are in your 20s, because let's face it, you are subsidizing the poor, injured, and elderly. Yep. But someday you too could be poor, injured or elderly. Just another reason to have universal health care.
3. I am currently reading "The Year of Living Danishly" (my MIL is Danish and she passed it on to me). Knowing some Danes and reading the book, it really is shocking - the differences when it comes to attitude about what a full work week is, work/ life balance, the social services available, etc.
4. Jobs with pensions. I am of 2 minds about this. First, it's not so easy to get these jobs - in many areas, like mine, you really need to know someone, and there's a lot of nepotism.
Second, in many (if not most), cases these are defined benefit plans and they are BROKE. So we find ourselves cutting services and increasing taxes because whomever was the person in charge of these damned things set up the benefits assuming a MUCH larger rate of gains than is happening. Yes, I am pissed at paying more when I had NOTHING to do with how they were set up. There need to be pension cuts, period.
How generous a pension is ALSO varies a lot. You see some very generous pensions in the UC system, and in police, sheriff, and fire departments. I don't really care who you are, or how dangerous your job was - I really see no reason for someone to collect 80-100% of their pension after 20-30 years of work. In no way, shape, or form, should anyone collect a pension for LONGER than they were working. Not ALL public pensions are this generous. There are plenty of teachers, federal workers, etc. whose pensions are much less generous.
So public pension overhauls are needed and they are going to vary A LOT, completely, by location and type of pension. Do you want to retire at 50 after 30 years in the sheriff's department? Fine, but you only collect for half the time you worked. (or whatever)
Totally aside, I'm not anti-government either. Had a long convo with one of my Danish friends, and the majority of jobs in Denmark are actually government jobs.