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Comment by kamyarg | Hacker News Reader

Per the author's twit, without the higher taxes etc. they would not have been able to afford becoming a software engineer without this welfare setup.

Also, yes you save much more, but when your mother has cancer and dad is disabled(As the author explains), realistically much more than what you save ends up being spent to take care of them and paying their medical bills.

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I have to say, she might be wrong about that. The US is different, sometimes worse, but people have adapted.

In the US, she would've been able to buy a laptop for dirt cheap or get it from some charity or just someone looking to get rid of it for free. I myself got my first laptops and smartphones from the US, it was cheaper than buying locally, believe it or not.

Most, if not all MOOCs are from the US. Tons of blogs, content, documentation in English, written by Americans. Free for all, just learn and show your skills.

But yes, if there's an unforeseen medical emergency, you could go bankrupt in the US, while you'd be taken care of for free (or nearly free) in Europe.

As someone who spent the first half of their life in poverty, this is not an accurate characterization of that situation in the US. Becoming a software engineer in the US is available to just about anyone, basically the cost of a cheap computer that sometimes literally rounds to "free" and some time. That is how I became a software engineer while working long hours at low-skill jobs. I eventually worked at FAANG and earned (much more than) $250k. This isn't a unique story; one of the under-rated aspects of living in the US is that this is realistically possible and many people do it. Low salaries for engineers don't help anyone except the company owners.

Poor people generally don't pay for healthcare in the US for the most part. I have multiple family members that received (literally) state-of-the-art cancer treatment at top hospitals at no cost to themselves. The hospitals don't even try to collect anything. That's pretty normal in the US. Having to pay expensive medical bills is something that happens to the middle class, not the poor.

Thanks for sharing this. She also mentions not affording university but that is besides the point.

I think there are two issue, Low gross salaries in EU(which I agree with you), and high taxes in the EU(Which the twitt justifies and I agree).

For the first issue, I am all for better and more fair wages in EU, but that is a completely different topic with different dynamics.

Just one question as I am genuinely curious, when poor people get hospitalized or can not work and have to rest at home, do they receive any payment due to their job? Do they get terminated? Do they receive a social payment of sorts? Even if they don't pay the medical bills, can they afford to get by without family/community support?

For more context see my other reply about a friend having stomach issues.

They'd realistically have Medicaid in the US which doesn't have high out of pocket costs. Probably social security payments for disability and various other government programs. Some programs would even pay the mother (or a relative) to stay home and help their disabled spouse. Community college is fairly inexpensive in the US so there's that as well.

I know someone that immigrated to EU from middle east, after ~1 year developed a severe life threatening stomach/liver illness(can not recall the details), went through multiple operations, after 1.5-2 years away from work but getting most of his salary due to welfare got better and got back to work. He is very young and I suspect you could have anything close to this in US. Let alone immigrants, even citizens can not afford to do this.

I have never lived in the US and this all from online media, reading and talking to various ex/current US citizens/residents colleagues, so I might be wrong still.

Like most things, the people who the system works for fine don't complain about it and those it fails for do complain about it.

Most of them were actually SV tech people who were well off. So I think the system was working fine for them.

As someone who has lived in various parts of the US and knows people across the economic spectrum I only know of one person who has had major issues with medical coverage in the US. Various complaining about doctors and treatments and so on but that's the case in all countries.

edit: And my comment was more to point out that anecdotes make poor facts.

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