How expensive is health care in the US? IE, in my country dentistry is fully private, and it costs about 100 USD for a teeth cleaning. How much is that in America?
Dental isn't really indicative of "how expensive health care is" though. Lots of U.S. dental and vision "insurance" plans are really just mandatory subscription plans since their bills are pretty consistent, and anything that might cost more gets you a referral to a hospital.
It's when you visit a hospital (voluntarily or via emergency ambulance) that you'll start getting the $1,000 - $100,000 bills that'll kill ya.
I live in a very expensive California city and it's about $160 for a cleaning with x-rays. And it's not a discount dental shop.
As a kid I had a 2 day hospital stay for an appendectomy that cost about $1000.
An appendectomy now runs around $100,000. An airlift to the emergency room will also cost around $75,000.
This is a common childhood ailment and is not related to living the so-called sinful lifestyle that people like to bring up as justification for high medical costs.
I'm in good health so I don't have much personal data - dentistry is about the only fully privatized healthcare I access.
My wife and I needed prophylactic rabies vaccinations after a bit of an adventure involving a bat in a guest house. Had that happened when we didn't have health insurance it would have cost $38,000 out-of-pocket. Blood-based medicines are expensive everywhere in the world, but I personally think it's completely immoral that we would even entertain a system which would completely sink someone financially over something like that.
You also pay $40 for a $100 teeth cleaning, so you're on the Bronze plan that has a 60% coverage and 40% copay. That's the most common plan.
You mention bankruptcy due to cancer. That is true. If you undergo cancer treatment the billed costs can run over $1 million. And you'll have that 40% bronze plan copay. This bankrupts everyone. Those not bankrupted had plans with 10 or 20% copays because they were of the elite class.
Some consider this affordable and reasonable. I don't, and I think you agree.
You mention your rabies vaccine costing $38,000 in the US and this is true. Did you know the rabies vaccine, without insurance, runs around $400 a dose in most of the world? With a 5 shot sequence that comes to about $2,000.
Instead I went to a Walgreens, bought a pin, a lighter, some ethanol, and a band-aid for like $5, and did it myself...
This is through insurance. Cash payment is negotiable and possibly much less, but that’s negotiated case per case.
It's far worse than treatment with leeches. Far far far worse. It's inhumane, oncologist merchants of death are aware they are causing suffering for their own financial gain, and most oncologists have committed severe crimes against humanity by simply practicing their vocation. Oncology for the most part is on par with being a Nazi SS soldier torturing and killing people, only much worse. It's a sadistic enterprise of pseudoscience which harms innocent people for profit. Those that promote it are vile evil people who should be permanently locked away from decent human beings.
It's about the same for me in the US, where we also don't have insurance for dentistry in general.
Getting a couple stitches on a Sunday on the other hand last ran me a bit over $7500.
$7500 seems well out of whack. What kind of gold were the stitches made of!? Surely it could be done for cheaper than that.