It's a federal country of many states though. The original design of the US is fairly similar to the design of the EU today, US states used to be offered much more independence.

Sure, I don't disagree that in a vague sense the EU and US are kinda similar in terms of countries and states.

> US states used to be offered much more independence.

But even in your own example with the EU, the EU still mandates many health policies for its member countries: food safety; air and water quality; tobacco, sugar and alcohol regulations; and so on. That's not at all dissimilar to what the federal government does in the US, except our states don't implement those policies/directives themselves because the feds enforce it all.

Sure, but you're making my point.

The comment I was replying to pointed out that the US isn't several countries put together. As you describe, the EU is several countries put together and yet the US actually pushes more power to the states.

> yet the US actually pushes more power to the states.

Doesn’t their comment claim the opposite?

Unlike the US Federal government EU has very limited direct means of imposing any if its laws or regulations on member states of they chose not to comply with them.