Dont exaggerate. I've lived in 3 European countries and Australia. My American healthcare is easily better than those. Sure I'm lucky to have a good job that pays for it, but you can't say its terrible without looking at how those public systems are really struggling right now.
Some Americans do get excellent care with a minimum of grief. Others think their insurance is fine while they're healthy and only discover later that it doesn't really cover what they imagine it does. And the difference is entirely arbitrary.
The fundamental problem of health insurance is that you cannot know what you will need, and there is no way to make an informed consumer choice, but your need when you have it is absolute. It's pathologically pessimal as a free market. And you usually don't know until it's too late.
Maybe because it's a politicized topic? How can you smugly dismiss their point like that?
Because "it's fine if you're rich" is a shitty place to terminate the matter. It's not a useful counterargument in any sense. Of course it's fine if you're rich, that's why people want to be rich. What about, you know, the rest of the planet?
Actuaries know, in aggregate, what specific demographics will need. Insurance companies use those statistics to make profit. The view that consumers cannot make informed choices on healthcare needs is incompatible with the fact that risks are not perfectly and uniformly random. Unless, by “informed choice”, you mean one that is correct in hindsight, in which case, I agree.
The UK was amazing - no questions asked care for my health was a massive improvement over what I had in the US. Free access to a doctor at any time is more life changing that you can think - every health issue I had I could talk to a medical professional and get guidance. Even free mental health care.
Moved to Ireland last year, with a mixed public/private system, and my health is now slipping a bit. Going to a GP, trying to file for reimbursements, and knowing that every time I have a health concern, it will cost me money, is a powerful suppressing force. I miss the NHS.
If we divide up people into percentiles based on wealth, 25, 50, 75, 95, how do you think people fare in the different countries? How do you think they the median experience is in America?
That is not where you are lucky.
You are lucky to be healthy enough that you can hold on to that job. Once your health takes a bad turn, and you are unable to work, when you really need your healthcare, that's when you are better positioned to judge the quality of healthcare.
Regardless of our personal experiences, the US spends so an enormous amount on healthcare and gets very little in return by basically all international measurements. Americans who think American healthcare seem to me too insecure to accept that their system is just plain bad. But yes Americans with a lot of money have access to better healthcare than average Americans. That said, this is essentially true in all countries so it's not that relevant really.
If that's whats necessary to get decent health care in this country, then something isn't right.
So for an individual, it is roughly a $10k per year benefit to get it via employer and for a family of 4, $40k per year benefit.
Only thing that Carrie’s
It’s astonishing how much market inefficiency we’re willing to tolerate.
A few examples for those wondering: * the total cost for over a week stay was a couple hundred dollars - very affordable! * certain painkillers banned in the USA were the first line of defense there * getting very strong pain killers was next to impossible - I think we probably only got it because we were family members of the anesthesiologist, and he knew we needed it. And it took nearly 24 hours of agonized pain before we could finally get them * nurses are not trained to put in IVs - we needed an MD for that. And the MD had a lot of things to do and we had to wait quite awhile even though there were many nurses around. In the USA, I think most people with the title of nurse can do that
I think some other places around the world use the title nurse for what may be a medical assistant in the US. (No clue about Germany though)
That's very odd. Nurses do that all the time in Norway.
It’s not so great for those in the middle.
There is no fun surprises like finding out that while your surgeon and hopsital were in-network your anaesthetist was out of network.
This practice has been outlawed this year.
When I was starting my career, I had to go to an ER that was out of network, I checked with my insurance and they said they would cover it. They decided after all not to honor their word and charged me 10’s of thousands of dollars.
Being young and independent, this was devastating, despite having a good job, good insurance, etc.
I largely credit this with my push to move to Europe, and have never looked back.
Sometimes knowing you can get any healthcare you need without it potentially a bankrupting you is it’s own reward.
That's the insanity here. You simply can't protect yourself reliably from overcharging. Hospitals and insurances do whatever they want and good luck to you fixing mistakes. I find it really hard to understand how people can be defending such a system.
Everything is fine everyone, no need to worry.