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It's the case not just in Korea and Japan but in most cities outside of America. It's one of American peculiarities, like checks or no public health care. Chin
by H8crilA 7y ago
It's the case not just in Korea and Japan but in most cities outside of America. It's one of American peculiarities, like checks or no public health care.
China has a fantastic subway system in most big cities, for example. I once took a subway ride from the Shenzhen airport to the Hong Kong border, crossed the border, switched to another subway and arrived in downtown Hong Kong. That's around 65km (40 miles) by public subway!
- rpedela 7y agoThere is public health care in US. Medicare for old people, Medicaid for poor people, and anyone without insurance can go to the ER. It may not be great, but it does exist.
- noobermin 7y agoThis seems like a pedantic point. The US AFAIK is the only healthcare system that is as dysfunctional as it is in the first world.
- rpedela 7y agoWhile traveling outside the US, I have found many people think Americans are cold and heartless and just let people die. It is an understandable conclusion the way people talk about the US system in the media and internet, but it also isn't true. The US has dysfunctional, public healthcare but it isn't so dysfunctional that you just die if you fall or get an ear infection without insurance. So saying the US has "no public health care" is not only incorrect but it is also overly dramatic.
- louwrentius 7y agoBut you are fucked with a huge bill that would cripple your life in a way that you might as well be dead.
- Broken_Hippo 7y agoAnd folks do skip going to the doctor, ration their medicines, and other such things. Folks suffer until things are an emergency as well and hospitals won't always help if you, say, need surgery for cancer that isn't presently killing you and isn't an emergency.
- rpedela 7y agoYes, it is dysfunctional. No one is arguing otherwise.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rpedela 7y agoThe government reimburses hospitals for ER visits if the patient can't pay.
- cpuguy83 7y agoHospital will gladly send you to collections and fuck your credit, though.
- martinflack 7y agoCitation? Genuinely curious.
- rpedela 7y agoThe source is my wife who is a clinical pharmacist at a large hospital which has a sizable uninsured patient population. Here is the first result on Google which does talk a little about federal funding for "uncompensated care" [1] starting near the halfway point. My wife's hospital was hit hard by ACA because it reduced federal funding for uncompensated care. The idea was that the funding could be cut because more people overall would be insured. Unfortunately enough of their patients still are without insurance that the funding shortage led to two rounds of layoffs. They seem to have adjusted to the new financial reality now and are hiring again. But the first couple years after ACA passed were tough. I guess it would be more accurate to say that the federal government funds uninsured ER visits, but the funding falls short of what is necessary especially after ACA. 1. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/07/03/who-pays-when-someone-without-insurance-shows-up-er/445756001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/07/03/who-...
- mcv 7y agoBut there are people who choose to die rather than risk bankrupting their family with uncontrollable medical costs. So there's plenty of drama. Medical bankruptcy in particular is something that I don't think occurs anywhere else.
- vonmoltke 7y ago> So there's plenty of drama. Medical bankruptcy in particular is something that I don't think occurs anywhere else. I doubt the veracity of this oft-repeated meme, but I'll let Snopes provide the detailed analysis: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/643000-bankruptcies-in-the-u-s-every-year-due-to-medical-bills/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/643000-bankruptcies-in-the... I would appreciate similarly-detailed evidence to the contrary.
- opencl 7y agoThis paper from the American Journal of Public Health says ~530k/year. http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304901 http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304901
- mcv 7y agoThe summary of that Snopes article is that while medical bankruptcy in the US is indeed far more common than anywhere else, it's not entirely unheard of outside the US. Not all medical expenses are always covered, and disability can always lead to financial difficulties anywhere. Though medical bankruptcy is still significantly less common; in the US it's the leading cause of personal bankruptcies, in other countries it's a lesser cause.
- useerup 7y ago> There is public health care in US. Medicare for old people, Medicaid for poor people, and anyone without insurance can go to the ER. It may not be great, but it does exist. There is some public healthcare but no universal healthcare. ER is not healthcare. You do not get treatment for chronic diseases, cancer etc. ER only treats you for the life or health threatening consequences of not getting treatment.
- rpedela 7y agoFor cancer, yes. For chronic diseases that can treated with a pill like heart disease and diabetes, they will prescribe the pills. People should use the word universal if that is what they mean.
- krzyk 7y agoMost people outside US when they say public healthcare they mean what's known in US as universal one.
- mcv 7y agoWhat's more, Medicaid costs about as much per American citizen as the NHS costs per British citizen. The only difference is that NHS also covers all those British citizens, whereas Medicare only covers a small group. So Americans are already paying for socialised health care, they're just not receiving it.
- ckris 7y agoI wouldn't say most cities unfortunately. European cities are quite walkable and not as sprawling as American ones. But it is still pretty easy to end up were only cars can go not that far from the city center, or where there is only the occasional bus. Asia is really the leader in public transport now. I think the article is slightly misleading. Currently in Europe things like bike infrastructure and public transport is sort of like the development of drones. Everyone is saying they are doing it to claim they are keeping up, but not a lot is happening. It isn't like Shenzhen were every year there is a new pedestrian street, bikes, subway line, train line or something became electrified.
- vladojsem 7y agoI live in Europe (in Prague right now) and I never needed to own a car here. I would say it depends on the city in Europe. However, if you occasionally happen to be outside of the city center where only cars go you would call Uber. I am fine with that when 90% of my daily transport is covered by public transport.
- fluffything 7y agoI live in Germany, and use the bike, e-scooter/bikes/... and public transport for everything. I have owned a car before, and I did not use those other transportation methods any less. We don't own a car anymore because it does not make economic sense for us. When we need to travel by car inside the city, we just use Uber (~30 EUR/month is what we currently pay). When we need a car for a couple of hours to pick up stuff, we use one of the car sharing vendors. We can get "the right car" for whatever we need for ~4 hours with gas for less than ~20 EUR (~once every two months). When we want to travel around with a car, we just rent a high end one for the weekend for ~300 EUR. We do that once every two months, although in the summer a bit more often. This means we end up paying ~3000-3500 EUR/year in rentals/uber. If we were to own a high end car, we would at least have to pay 30.000 EUR/year for a used one with 100k kms. On top, we need to pay insurance (~500-600EUR/year), parking (~150EUR/month where we live), maintenance (~200/year), handle some other burdens (wheel changes, etc.), and if for whatever reason we need a different car (to pick up something big), we still need to rent that. That puts the costs of owning a car at 2300-2400EUR/year + unforeseen maintenance + gas + rentals + (30.000 EUR - reselling value) / (years until re-selling). Where we live, unless one uses the car at least every weekend, it makes no sense owning one. At one weekend usage per month, you can just rent, and are more flexible.
- briandear 7y agoChecks? France loves checks and use them more than Americans. No public health care? That isn’t true either. Medicaid and Medicare are public health care. Another legitimate peculiarity of Americans is the vastly higher disposable income compared to most other countries. Even with all of the “free” stuff, the French have lower wages and far less disposable income than Americans.
- useerup 7y ago> No public health care? That isn’t true either. Medicaid and Medicare are public health care. I think you know that "public healthcare" was referring to universal healthcare in this context. US is the only western democracy without universal healthcare.
- H8crilA 7y agoYeah that's what I meant. Too late to edit comment!
- patrickaljord 7y agoSwitzerland and the Netherlands healthcare is private though people are obligated to get a plan. Works great and cheaper than here in France which is horribly expensive for anyone with a decent wage.
- mcv 7y agoThe Dutch and especially Swiss healthcare systems are actually among the most expensive in Europe. France is cheaper per capita.
- patrickaljord 7y agoYes per capita, that's why I said "for anyone with a decent wage". France has one of the highest unemployment rate in OCDE, so for all these people it is indeed cheap, in fact free. But for those actually making more than the minimum wage (and for anyone making close to a SV salary or the French equivalent), you end up paying way way more than the Dutch and the Swiss.
- mseidl 7y agoHow long did that take?
- puranjay 7y agoDunno about China, but you can go from one end of the city to the other in Delhi - a distance of nearly 40km by car - in under 1 hour by metro.
- zhdc1 7y agoI can't speak for mainland China, but if it's anything like Taiwan, there's probably an illusion of accessibility brought on by the sheer size of the cities/transportation infrastructure that you don't really notice until you've lived there a while. The subway systems in Taipei and Kaohsiung are great, but it's easy to ignore just how much of each city isn't serviced by underground or above ground rail, and are only accessible via public transportation through spotty bus networks.
- Ericson2314 7y agoIn New York you don't need a car either. But this isn't good enough. A Car-free city means no one is allowed to use automobiles for personal transportation. I'm sick of non-necessary car use ruining the quality of life for everyone else.
- throw0101a 7y ago> It's the case not just in Korea and Japan but in most cities outside of America. It's one of American peculiarities, like checks or no public health care. As opposed to the peculiarity of Japan, where cash (often in envelopes) is used for a lot of stuff (instead of cards). :)