Another country where nationalized healthcare is a bad idea.
Look at the Blue Cross Blue Shield plan for Michigan. It covers a number of gene therapies at a cost of $2.2M for one of them.
Not all European countries pay for it.
https://www.bcbsm.com/amslibs/content/dam/public/employers/d...
The economics would never work out unless premiums were sky high or the insurance is mandatory or across most of your population.
It only works if premiums are spread across a large population so a $2.5M therapy becomes a $1 increase in premium for 2.5M people.
Best of the both worlds.
In the UK I earn a decent wage (well more than 80% of people in the UK), and last year I paid less than £3k / $3.5k for healthcare which covered me, my wife, my 2 children. It also covers my 70+ year old mother and my 90+ year old grandmother who don't earn enough to pay income tax.
80% of people pay far less than I do.
What type of health insurance can I buy in the US for $290 a month to cover a family with no co-pays.
>>you have to fund the super expensive good for nothing public one anyway.
My father had battled cancer in Polish oncology hospitals and has received nothing but top tier treatment wherever he went. What's more, NFZ completely funded the treatment with then-experimental Glivec for him, which was billed at around 200k zł/year(in US, a year of Glivec treatment is around $100k). In the course of 8 years of cancer he had to stop working due to the ilness, and yet was still fully covered and received the same treatment as always.
So no, it's not "expensive but good for nothing". It's not expensive compared to private treatment, and it's extremely good if you have a major ilness. I agree that routine treatment and appointments are in shambles, but that's universally true pretty much everywhere in Europe right now, the waiting times in countries with public healthcare systems have inflated into infinity due to a combination of factors. But even in Poland, I wouldn't dare to not pay into the system - it's too good not to pay for it(and I do, in fact, pay for it).
> but that's universally true pretty much everywhere in Europe right now, the waiting times in countries with public healthcare systems have inflated into infinity due to a combination of factor
I have heard that's not the case in Germany and the private appointments are almost not a thing. I could be wrong though.
https://www.icalculator.info/poland.html
Says that people pay 1.25% in health insurance.
Poland in general pays 6% of its GDP on health care. The US spends 3 times that.
So, depending on where you are, private healthcare means the government pays their share and you pay the rest through an insurance or directly. Again depending on where you are the insured is often provided by your employer, so if you happen to get ill you can have your treatment in a luxury.