It's dangerous to compare policy positions between countries when trying to establish ideology. Ideology is not about an absolute policy state but instead about direction.
In countries like France or the UK, they already have universal healthcare managed largely by the government. Keeping that universal healthcare would thus align with the classical conservative view, that is to say, it's the act of conserving the status quo. Expanding on that healthcare would be a progressive ideological stance, while contracting that system would be the reactionary ideological position (most parties identified as "conservative" in the modern era would more properly be defined as reactionaries).
In the US, we do not yet have that, so movement towards universal healthcare managed largely by the government is a progressive stance.
Putting on my math nerd hat, if we imagine politics as a 2D Cartesian plane, ideology is not absolute positions with X and Y coordinates. Ideology would instead be expressed as a vector: a magnitude and a direction from a starting coordinate.
It's dangerous to compare policy positions between countries when trying to establish ideology. Ideology is not about an absolute policy state but instead about direction.
In countries like France or the UK, they already have universal healthcare managed largely by the government. Keeping that universal healthcare would thus align with the classical conservative view, that is to say, it's the act of conserving the status quo. Expanding on that healthcare would be a progressive ideological stance, while contracting that system would be the reactionary ideological position (most parties identified as "conservative" in the modern era would more properly be defined as reactionaries).
In the US, we do not yet have that, so movement towards universal healthcare managed largely by the government is a progressive stance.
Putting on my math nerd hat, if we imagine politics as a 2D Cartesian plane, ideology is not absolute positions with X and Y coordinates. Ideology would instead be expressed as a vector: a magnitude and a direction from a starting coordinate.
Well explained!! Fantastic math analogy.