something you brought up in class today was the fact that taxes are so much higher in Europe (you mentioned France specifically) than they are here in America. however they do have universal healthcare.
why don't we do the same thing? yeah taxes would be much higher but everyone always complains about how horrible it is to pay for hospital bills and such.
for example, which is obviously relevant to you, the most expensive price of hospital bills and all the things after having a baby is over $50,000 (this is indeed before insurance and with a c-section but even then, the lowest it would be is like $18,000 and maybe cheaper with good insurance). in contrast, the UK is a little under $5,000 plus France and Germany are even cheaper.
anywho...why don''t we do what Europe does?