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Comment by rogerb | Hacker News Reader

In Australia we went to the doctor after my kid had an allergic reaction. They medicated him, had a nurse within 10 feet and kept him for 6 hours until symptons receded. Total cost - AUD$40. The US systom is absolutely insane, expensive and delivers worse results.

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I'm in Australia too, and I equally laud the system we have here.

But note that this article was about a Korean family travelling in the US.

A foreign family travelling in Australia won't be covered by Australian Medicare and will be at the mercy of the medical cover on their travel insurance, which is the real story here.

That's not to say that the charges for this visit weren't exorbitant, but your case isn't an apples with apples comparison.

Of course that was not the total cost. That was just the cost to you at that moment. The rest is paid by the society. The real total is probably still a lot less than the cost in the US would have been.

Also, early treatment avoids really expensive later treatment. Wait too long with an allergic reaction, and you might end up calling the ambulance, invoking ICU and so on and so on. Instead of probably a couple of pills to reduce the immune systems response.

This is no different than the way health insurance works, though. The mechanisms for collecting money and subsidies are different and for most places, there is a much larger pool of folks paying into the system.

Oh yes, of course. I just wanted to point out that it's not quite fair to compare out-of-pocket costs.

> Total cost - AUD$40

That's not even paying 30 mins of the nurse. You are kidding yourself if you consider this is the total cost.

Of course not.

But it’s still easy to compare. Look up public medical expenditures per capita. The US’ ranks amongst the highest, while covering few people and quite poorly (the VA is... the VA).

By comparison, Australia spends about the same per capital and covers everybody, without everybody needing to fill out $1000/mo (like I do - for family of three)for insurance.

I am pretty sure $40 isn’t the cost of the exams. It is being subsidised by other tax payers. We can discuss the merits of this approach but it is not necessarily cheaper overall.

Of course it's not, but the difference here is that OP isn't made insolvent, or forced to sell their home, to pay their hospital bill.

Health expenditure per capita in the US is about twice that of Australia so it does appear to be cheaper overall.

The US government pays more for healthcare in the US than many other countries. When you add in private insurance the US far outspends outher countries for healthcare. But they don't have better results. For example, the US has a shorter average lifespan than many countries.

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