9 ms·

As a European, I noticed that discussions held here about X in the US _always_ converge against their healthcare. "Salary in the US is higher" - but heir healt

by Jdam 9y ago

As a European, I noticed that discussions held here about X in the US _always_ converge against their healthcare. "Salary in the US is higher" - but heir healthcare sucks "Weather in California is nicer than in Oslo" - But you don't have healtcare "New York is such a great city to live in" - But you're left for dead

tertius 9y ago
Healthcare sucks AND it's ridiculously expensive.
- thanksgiving 9y ago
  Yes! As a twenty something single I was shocked that people saw paying $200 out of pocket each month as a privilege that comes with working. Clearly, for me it was a pure waste because I used exactly zero dollars worth of health care myself. Of course, people with infants absolutely need it. I had a coworker who had basically the same story as Jimmy Kimmel (newborn with heart defect). I can't imagine how much quality care would cost if he didn't have health insurance through work. I mean at some point there were apparently dozens of specialists involved with the case... I'm sure each of them are billed at hundreds of dollars each hour. I just want to say that at the end of the day there is no solution other than reducing the cost: be it healthcare or education or retirement...
  - kayoone 9y ago
    not getting healthcare as a 20-something is popular, but incredibly shortsighted.
    - thanksgiving 9y ago
      > not getting healthcare as a 20-something is popular, but incredibly shortsighted. My idea is that it is not something that you should have to think about. I mean I understand it is a difficult topic because you have these outliers that can totally destroy your life if you have a baby with a malfunctioning heart or whatever but it comes back to the question of what we think is fair. I sincerely believe that healthcare is too expensive. The problem is that nobody who is in a position to cut costs has the incentive to do so. I mean I hear all these complaints about medicare from providers like oh there are restrictions on what you can bill and what you can't and I am just thinking "good" because otherwise the doctor will put every single patient who comes in with a stomach ache through an MRI without using any of her judgment. I mean it looks badly on her if one out of a thousand patients turns out to have something she didn't catch but it doesn't hurt her at all for all those 999 useless MRI and the cost of those. The hospital is happy because they already have the machine and the technician who is there so is drawing salary so they have an incentive to maximize the use of the machine and the technician. I am hopeful for medicare for all but we should remember that this is not the end of the problem. There are no silver bullets. As a society, we have to constantly make difficult choices and I for one support "death panels" which to me means that certain cases where the cost is too great AND the outcome is not good enough can and should get denied.
      - dm319 9y ago
        > where the cost is too great AND the outcome is not good enough can and should get denied. I'm not completely clear on the point you're trying to make, but this is how things work in socialised healthcare. Not everything is paid for - instead the money that is available is spent on those that return the best value-for-money balanced against not being unfair on an individual level. The question of whether to MRI everyone with tummy pain is translatable into a clinical question and can be tested in clinical studies. In the UK we work on using a QALY - or quality-adjusted life-year to help with these sorts of decisions. They are used on boards in NICE (for general health-provisioning guidance) and the cancer drugs fund [1] which aims to give quick guidance on the fast-developing and expensive field of anti-cancer therapies. Sure there are no silver bullets, but issues you bring up are being tackled to a relatively sophisticated degree in other countries. [1] https://www.england.nhs.uk/cancer/cdf/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/cancer/cdf/
        thanksgiving 9y ago
        > Sure there are no silver bullets, but issues you bring up are being tackled to a relatively sophisticated degree in other countries. That's perfect! One more question: how do you handle things like tobacco, alcohol, sugar, daredevils (think jackass the TV show)?
  - Frondo 9y ago
    I also skipped getting health insurance in my 20s, which I deeply regretted when I needed unexpected emergency surgery to remove a diseased organ. The hospital that did it was religiously affiliated and knocked a huge amount off my total hospital stay, but I still paid a lot out of pocket. What's worse is, until the ACA came along, that bout of uninsured surgery made me uninsurable from then on--I had "pre-existing condition". The ACA has made it possible for me to actually buy health insurance at all again. Of course, I'm still hoping the Medicare for All movement starts gaining steam...
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Until you have a catastrophic health issue like say total kidney failure at 18 which happed to some one I know or you need a transplant I dread to think what my recent kidney transplant would costs in the USA as opposed to the UK
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- twothamendment 9y ago
  My healthcare plan costs me $1,200/month for my family of 4. It went up nearly 30% this year and is expected to do the same next year. Give it a few years and it will be $2,000! I have a good job, but if that keeps going I won't have any choice but pay the fine/tax. So back to the $1,000 phone. If all phones cost $1000 - I'd be more likely to go without one.
  - tertius 9y ago
    If you're Christian check out medishare (and other alternatives). Disclaimer: I'm not a still for them.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
mbroncano 9y ago
You got it right, it's difficult to imagine for a European what it's like to deal with having no medical care if unemployed. In addition, the fact that's part of every discussion gives a hint of how much of an issue this is.
- seppin 9y ago
  > You got it right, it's difficult to imagine for a European what it's like to deal with having no medical care if unemployed. you buy subsidized insurance. do Europeans really think the USA is just a free for all ?
  - esolyt 9y ago
    They do because that's how most educated Americans describe their country to Europeans.
  - oAlbe 9y ago
    There's a point below which you can't afford any kind of even subsidized insurance. Not if you want to keep paying rent, buy food, car insurance to keep going to work, phone bill, electric bill and so on. Whereas in the part of Europe where I live, the less you have the less healthcare costs you. EDIT: The less it costs for the same quality.
    - wil421 9y ago
      I'm not really sure where you get your information. Anyone can get Heath insurance from the healthcare.gov marketplace. Your salary requirements factor into the price. Someone making only 17k a year is capped at $54 a month premium. There are caps at certain salary intervals. > Whereas in the part of Europe where I live, the less you have the less healthcare costs you. 100% true for the US as well. Please don't listen to news or internet comments. Verify the facts!
      - unclepresent 9y ago
        If you are not getting subsidized because of income, you have to pay for everyone else who is subsidized. I was buying plans from health care exchange for 2 years and my last plan for two (parent and child) cost me 500$ per month with 6500 deductible per person - 13000$ total. So effectively I had only a catastrophic insurance but was forced to pay for some subsidized guys who had a platinum plan with no deductible for 54$ per month. Worst situation for people like me!
coverband 9y ago
I was reminded of this again over the weekend when listening to this story on the radio: http://www.npr.org/2017/09/10/549489252/emperor-x-we-are-much-more-than-the-sum-of-the-diseases-and-disabilities-we-carr http://www.npr.org/2017/09/10/549489252/emperor-x-we-are-muc... "Like many musicians, Matheny went years with minimal health insurance, or none at all. In Germany, with no insurance, he wound up in debt of about €30,000 — roughly $35,000. That's what Matheny calculated he would have owed in the U.S. if he did have insurance."
rconti 9y ago
I'd say for most of us in the US it's a non-issue -- you either have it, or you don't, and that hasn't changed a ton in the past few decades. I don't go around thinking "man, if I was in Sweden, I'd ALSO have health care just like I do today".

by Jdam 9y ago

tertius 9y ago

Healthcare sucks AND it's ridiculously expensive.

thanksgiving 9y ago
Yes! As a twenty something single I was shocked that people saw paying $200 out of pocket each month as a privilege that comes with working. Clearly, for me it was a pure waste because I used exactly zero dollars worth of health care myself. Of course, people with infants absolutely need it. I had a coworker who had basically the same story as Jimmy Kimmel (newborn with heart defect). I can't imagine how much quality care would cost if he didn't have health insurance through work. I mean at some point there were apparently dozens of specialists involved with the case... I'm sure each of them are billed at hundreds of dollars each hour. I just want to say that at the end of the day there is no solution other than reducing the cost: be it healthcare or education or retirement...
- kayoone 9y ago
  not getting healthcare as a 20-something is popular, but incredibly shortsighted.
  - thanksgiving 9y ago
    > not getting healthcare as a 20-something is popular, but incredibly shortsighted. My idea is that it is not something that you should have to think about. I mean I understand it is a difficult topic because you have these outliers that can totally destroy your life if you have a baby with a malfunctioning heart or whatever but it comes back to the question of what we think is fair. I sincerely believe that healthcare is too expensive. The problem is that nobody who is in a position to cut costs has the incentive to do so. I mean I hear all these complaints about medicare from providers like oh there are restrictions on what you can bill and what you can't and I am just thinking "good" because otherwise the doctor will put every single patient who comes in with a stomach ache through an MRI without using any of her judgment. I mean it looks badly on her if one out of a thousand patients turns out to have something she didn't catch but it doesn't hurt her at all for all those 999 useless MRI and the cost of those. The hospital is happy because they already have the machine and the technician who is there so is drawing salary so they have an incentive to maximize the use of the machine and the technician. I am hopeful for medicare for all but we should remember that this is not the end of the problem. There are no silver bullets. As a society, we have to constantly make difficult choices and I for one support "death panels" which to me means that certain cases where the cost is too great AND the outcome is not good enough can and should get denied.
    - dm319 9y ago
      > where the cost is too great AND the outcome is not good enough can and should get denied. I'm not completely clear on the point you're trying to make, but this is how things work in socialised healthcare. Not everything is paid for - instead the money that is available is spent on those that return the best value-for-money balanced against not being unfair on an individual level. The question of whether to MRI everyone with tummy pain is translatable into a clinical question and can be tested in clinical studies. In the UK we work on using a QALY - or quality-adjusted life-year to help with these sorts of decisions. They are used on boards in NICE (for general health-provisioning guidance) and the cancer drugs fund [1] which aims to give quick guidance on the fast-developing and expensive field of anti-cancer therapies. Sure there are no silver bullets, but issues you bring up are being tackled to a relatively sophisticated degree in other countries. [1] https://www.england.nhs.uk/cancer/cdf/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/cancer/cdf/
      - thanksgiving 9y ago
        > Sure there are no silver bullets, but issues you bring up are being tackled to a relatively sophisticated degree in other countries. That's perfect! One more question: how do you handle things like tobacco, alcohol, sugar, daredevils (think jackass the TV show)?
- Frondo 9y ago
  I also skipped getting health insurance in my 20s, which I deeply regretted when I needed unexpected emergency surgery to remove a diseased organ. The hospital that did it was religiously affiliated and knocked a huge amount off my total hospital stay, but I still paid a lot out of pocket. What's worse is, until the ACA came along, that bout of uninsured surgery made me uninsurable from then on--I had "pre-existing condition". The ACA has made it possible for me to actually buy health insurance at all again. Of course, I'm still hoping the Medicare for All movement starts gaining steam...
- walshemj 9y ago
  Until you have a catastrophic health issue like say total kidney failure at 18 which happed to some one I know or you need a transplant I dread to think what my recent kidney transplant would costs in the USA as opposed to the UK
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
twothamendment 9y ago
My healthcare plan costs me $1,200/month for my family of 4. It went up nearly 30% this year and is expected to do the same next year. Give it a few years and it will be $2,000! I have a good job, but if that keeps going I won't have any choice but pay the fine/tax. So back to the $1,000 phone. If all phones cost $1000 - I'd be more likely to go without one.
- tertius 9y ago
  If you're Christian check out medishare (and other alternatives). Disclaimer: I'm not a still for them.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

mbroncano 9y ago

You got it right, it's difficult to imagine for a European what it's like to deal with having no medical care if unemployed. In addition, the fact that's part of every discussion gives a hint of how much of an issue this is.

seppin 9y ago
> You got it right, it's difficult to imagine for a European what it's like to deal with having no medical care if unemployed. you buy subsidized insurance. do Europeans really think the USA is just a free for all ?
- esolyt 9y ago
  They do because that's how most educated Americans describe their country to Europeans.
- oAlbe 9y ago
  There's a point below which you can't afford any kind of even subsidized insurance. Not if you want to keep paying rent, buy food, car insurance to keep going to work, phone bill, electric bill and so on. Whereas in the part of Europe where I live, the less you have the less healthcare costs you. EDIT: The less it costs for the same quality.
  - wil421 9y ago
    I'm not really sure where you get your information. Anyone can get Heath insurance from the healthcare.gov marketplace. Your salary requirements factor into the price. Someone making only 17k a year is capped at $54 a month premium. There are caps at certain salary intervals. > Whereas in the part of Europe where I live, the less you have the less healthcare costs you. 100% true for the US as well. Please don't listen to news or internet comments. Verify the facts!
    - unclepresent 9y ago
      If you are not getting subsidized because of income, you have to pay for everyone else who is subsidized. I was buying plans from health care exchange for 2 years and my last plan for two (parent and child) cost me 500$ per month with 6500 deductible per person - 13000$ total. So effectively I had only a catastrophic insurance but was forced to pay for some subsidized guys who had a platinum plan with no deductible for 54$ per month. Worst situation for people like me!

coverband 9y ago

I was reminded of this again over the weekend when listening to this story on the radio: http://www.npr.org/2017/09/10/549489252/emperor-x-we-are-much-more-than-the-sum-of-the-diseases-and-disabilities-we-carr http://www.npr.org/2017/09/10/549489252/emperor-x-we-are-muc... "Like many musicians, Matheny went years with minimal health insurance, or none at all. In Germany, with no insurance, he wound up in debt of about €30,000 — roughly $35,000. That's what Matheny calculated he would have owed in the U.S. if he did have insurance."

rconti 9y ago

I'd say for most of us in the US it's a non-issue -- you either have it, or you don't, and that hasn't changed a ton in the past few decades. I don't go around thinking "man, if I was in Sweden, I'd ALSO have health care just like I do today".