When American author Linda Tirado gave birth to her second child, she was too poor to afford health insurance. So she was charged $14,000 for the birth.
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It was only when she visited London recently that she realised that in other countries, you could just go to hospital if you were sick and not expect to lose your job or be crippled by bills.
Tirado shot to fame just two years ago, after she posted an essay online entitled "Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or Poverty Thoughts" which explained bluntly how she and millions of other Americans could not escape poverty despite working multiple jobs for desperately low pay.
The essay was read by 8 million people and Tirado found herself an overnight sensation as the voice of America's working class – and a book deal followed.
Now she is in Australia to speak at the Australian Council of Social Service's national conference. She will appear on the ABC's Q&A on Monday night and her visit to Canberra on Tuesday will include a "politics in the pub"-style public gathering at King O'Malley's in Civic.
"Australia needs to be careful to not be America," she says.
Tirado says she's proud of her country but there are too many failings when it comes to welfare. "We have in America a lot of amazing, wonderful things. What we don't have is a strong safety net, we don't have a welfare state mentality in the same way that I see in Australia – and it really hit me in London, because I hadn't known what other countries had or what other countries provided their citizens," she says.
"I thought everybody was the same – make it or break it. I understood they were a little more generous and the tax rates were a little bit higher. But I hadn't understood that you could just go to the hospital if you were sick."
Tirado says Australia has a national "we're all in it together" mentality that is incredible but politicians such as Joe Hockey with his advice to "get a job that pays good money" still show a society that's stratified. "I've been in Australia for two days and I've had people tell me, 'We really don't have class divisions here', but when you have a government leader [Hockey] that can say something that tone deaf and that outside of reality for so many people – I have to think, 'No, definitely there's a class division'."
Tirado's liberal leanings are clear – her Canberra visit is partly sponsored by Labor think tank the Chifley Research Centre and she cheekily suggests that the world should stop electing "leaders named Tony or Jeb". Her message for the country's politicians is equally clear: "That politics, no matter where you are in the world, is not meant to be a game of who has the most power and who can control the most, it's who provides the best life for their constituents and their citizens."
She says that everyone, even if they're an extreme example such as "the laziest guy on the planet", still deserves the right to basic health care and shelter. "Here is the standard of living that anybody in our country will have and we will sink no lower. This is the bare minimum because we are that nation that is so good, that is so well run, that is so efficient that even somebody who refuses to get a job because they're sheerly lazy can still expect a roof over their head and food. They're still part of this society," she says.
Linda Tirado is on Q&A on the ABC on Monday at 7.30pm. She will be in Canberra on Tuesday, June 23, for a "politics in the pub" event at King O'Malley's in Civic at 5pm. Free.
