Comment by Trow83949 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Trow83949 | Hacker News Reader

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OK, in Czechia:

- there is a big debate if doctors should serve 24 hours without break (non stop) in hospital.

- doctors may be forced to operate after 24 hours of non stop work. I know for fact anesthesiologist who did so. We have VERY strict regulations for truck drivers to only drive 8 hours per day...

- there are no basic medications in pharmacy, like penicillin or anti fever sirup for kids

- you pay 8% medical income tax (it is called insurance), but there is no chance to find dentist or GP. So you go private an pay it out of pocket

- no chance to sue doctor or hospital for mistreatment. I could tell stories about tampons and tools forgotten inside patient...

- we have highest numbers of doctors per capita in Europe, yet system is very inefficient

- doctors spend about 40% of their time with paperwork

- base salary for doctor (without overtimes) is very low, they would not even qualify for mortgage..

- once I waited 12 hours at emergency room in public hospital (with life threatening condition), at end I gave up, and went to private clinic. I took second job to pay it...

Why is there so much overtime and wait time with so many doctors per capita? In Poland wait times can be significant and overtime is rampant but sill lower than what you said but we have one of the lowest number of doctors and nurses per capita in EU.

When seeing “pretty much” anywhere in the EU, Czechia certainly wouldn’t seem to come to mind and doesn’t seem like an argument in good faith.

It may be the EU, but why not use a more comparable country?

Czechia is a more average EU country than Germany, which is the actual outlier

> the actual outlier

How so? GDP per capita:

Germany, $52k

EU avg, $40k

Czechia, $30k

Why? I mean Czechia is below average in most economic indicators but not by that much, it's far from being the poorest EU country.

This seems obvious, but choosing a poorer EU country when the commenter already left room for exceptions when the said “pretty much” to compare to the US is not an argument in good faith.

Well it's not exactly Massachusetts but it seems to be on par with Florida, Vermont, Michigan, Maine etc. if you look at GDP per capita (relatively). I don't think Czechia is somehow exceptionally poor (of course on the whole the EU is much poorer on average).

Let’s focus on the argument in good faith part then because it’s not. It seems to squarely fall within the provided exception.

This is pointless. Go tell someone who’s been there with a straight face that Czechia is basically like Florida or Michigan. Have a good weekend.

This GDP argument is useless. Before war Russia had GDP comparable to Italy, it should collapse in a few days after sanctions, and we all know how it went!

You can look at median disposable household income, rent/real estate to income ratio and many other indicator which tell a similar story. GDP per capita is just a proxy.

> Before war Russia had GDP

Well.. Russia had 2.3 times higher population than Italy so it's not particularly surprising. Also it wasn't really that poor compared to most other EE countries (about on par with the Baltic states prior to 2014).

> there with a straight face that Czechia is basically like Florida or Michigan

Compared to the median EU country Czechia is basically like Florida or Michigan (e.g. it's GDP per capita is closer to that of the Netherlands the Michigan's is to Massachusetts etc.).

> Go tell someone who’s been there with a straight face that Czechia

The problem is that the EU is significantly poorer on the whole.

> It seems to squarely fall within the provided exception.

I don't agree.

> This is pointless.

I'm really not quite sure what are you trying to say. Economically only Switzerland, Norway and Ireland(*) really have a higher GDP per capita than the US only one of them is even in the EU. Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden (only 39 mil people in total) are not that far off, so are we supposed to ignore all the other countries in the EU because of that?

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