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Agreed. The EU is where countries go after empire, and is a solution to that problem (along with all of the lost wars and preventing more lost wars). It also de

Agreed. The EU is where countries go after empire, and is a solution to that problem (along with all of the lost wars and preventing more lost wars). It also deals with the populism problem far better than America, for example. The UK is going to become a Russian and American playground when Brexit occurs. It will be a paradise for oligarchs to play the populace even more. Oligarchs thrive from the chaos of these sorts of situations and especially financially. I understand why Americans want to come to the UK. A lot of them come for the sole purpose of having access to better and guaranteed healthcare (you can have good insurance and still owe tens of thousands to millions if you have either cancer or a rare disease and both are statistically common—-also the third leading cause of death is believed to be medical errors according to Johns Hopkins and others—-you can go to the best institutions and still very easily die unnecessarily in the US as that kind of statistic cannot be evaded), but the lifespan of the UK population is going to lag hardcore compared to other countries on the European continent, especially ones in or aligned with the EU. Getting UK citizenship can be hard too. They are not immigration friendly at all, unless you were an EU citizen (at least in the past). There are some really esoteric rules, and there are people who have been denied citizenship for having a misdemeanor moving traffic violation, with no arrest or criminal record, who paid the fine on time. If you really want to have access to the UK, become a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the EU. By being an EU citizen, you can live/work/retire in over 30 European countries, including all of the EU countries. It is far easier to become an Irish citizen too. They are also very pro-EU. Not only that, citizens of the Republic of Ireland have rights to live/work/retire in the UK due to a common agreement.

nradov 6y ago
There is very little medical tourism from the US to the UK. In fact patients tend to go the other way. The US has higher 5 year survival rates for most types of cancer.
- disabled 6y ago
  Americans frequently emigrate to the UK to eventually have guaranteed lifelong access to healthcare. Tourism is a totally different matter. You go to the “eastern” EU countries in that case. As for the cancer patient survival, in the US, 42% of patients lose their life savings within 2 years and the amount was typically around $92,000. That alone screws American cancer patients over long term, and it can cause them to die. EDIT forgot to add link for further information: https://www.truthorfiction.com/do-four-in-ten-cancer-patients-really-lose-their-life-savings/ https://www.truthorfiction.com/do-four-in-ten-cancer-patient... You can cherry pick data, but your logic does not add up. Spend some time on HealthData.org examining the US versus other developed countries. We may have better cancer survival rates, but when you look at deaths attributed to amenable and non-amenable medical errors (believed to be the US #3 leading cause of death by multiple studies), the average American life expectancy, and anticipated life expectancies in the future (in addition to disability free years of life), it is 100% clear that we fail as a system. A lot of these patients probably had missed or late cancer diagnoses too, due to the lack of preventative care and also just the lack of public health regulations in the US. Pretty much every developed country has a better healthcare system than the US. We do not have a normal system, and many like to think of it as normal, but it is far from that. You can cherry pick data all day, but you are not seeing the big picture here, and you do not realize how easy it is to become a statistic. I nearly died from medical errors in the US healthcare system myself, and from sepsis at age 23. I am a dual US|EU citizen (culturally American) living in the EU, and I never plan on working in the US or living there long term.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Very few Americans emigrate to the UK in order to gain access to healthcare. You are posting misinformation to push a political narrative.
    - disabled 6y ago
      The UK is hard to emigrate to. There are better options than the UK, especially now that they left the EU. But, the Americans who go to the UK and eventually do become UK citizens often do over healthcare. While being an American expat is not as common due to worldwide liability on taxes, many of those who emigrate to developed countries and eventually become citizens do so for guaranteed access to healthcare and other benefits of a social welfare state that the US does not have. The problem with Canada/Australia/New Zealand, where many Americans go, as we are more culturally aligned with them compared to other developed countries, is that they have medical inadmissability clauses in their immigration laws. You generally have to be pretty healthy to get a even get an approved work visa there, and stay relatively healthy to become a citizen. So, you really cannot effectively emigrate for healthcare to these countries. This is why you do not hear about Americans emigrating over healthcare as much.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    > As for the cancer patient survival, in the US, 42% of patients lose their life savings within 2 years and the amount was typically around $92,000. That alone screws American cancer patients over long term, and it can cause them to die. If you have insurance, and 80-90%+ of Americans do (and probably more among cancer patients, as they are usually older so they often qualify for Medicare), it’s extremely rare to spend $92k in 2 year. Even in the plans with the highest out of pocket maximums, these are almost never more than $10k/year. That might drain people savings anyway, but a lot of people have very little savings. I really don’t know where your data is from, but it doesn’t match the reality lived by most Americans. The US healthcare system has a lot of problems, so many that you don’t really need to make ones up.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Source for your contention that “Americans frequently emigrate to the UK?” Do you have any comparison for what cancer does to the finances of people in the UK? Because there is more to it than the cost of medical care. The cost of medical care is a lot less than that in the US: https://healthpayerintelligence.com/news/cancer-patients-paid-5.6b-out-of-pocket-cancer-costs-in-2018 https://healthpayerintelligence.com/news/cancer-patients-pai... “In a case study, a patient with lymphoma paid out-of-pocket healthcare costs from $6,446 in a large employer-sponsored health plan to $12,931 in a health plan on the individual health insurance market. These were all Affordable Care Act (ACA)-compliant plans.” Note that your survey covers 2000-2012, mostly before the ACA went into effect. The resource above says Americans spent $5.6 billion on out of pocket cancer care annually. There’s 2 million cancer cases annually, so you’re talking about $2,500 in out of pocket costs on average.
xyzzyz 6y ago
> A lot of them come for the sole purpose of having access to better and guaranteed healthcare This pretty much never happens.

nradov 6y ago

There is very little medical tourism from the US to the UK. In fact patients tend to go the other way. The US has higher 5 year survival rates for most types of cancer.

disabled 6y ago
Americans frequently emigrate to the UK to eventually have guaranteed lifelong access to healthcare. Tourism is a totally different matter. You go to the “eastern” EU countries in that case. As for the cancer patient survival, in the US, 42% of patients lose their life savings within 2 years and the amount was typically around $92,000. That alone screws American cancer patients over long term, and it can cause them to die. EDIT forgot to add link for further information: https://www.truthorfiction.com/do-four-in-ten-cancer-patients-really-lose-their-life-savings/ https://www.truthorfiction.com/do-four-in-ten-cancer-patient... You can cherry pick data, but your logic does not add up. Spend some time on HealthData.org examining the US versus other developed countries. We may have better cancer survival rates, but when you look at deaths attributed to amenable and non-amenable medical errors (believed to be the US #3 leading cause of death by multiple studies), the average American life expectancy, and anticipated life expectancies in the future (in addition to disability free years of life), it is 100% clear that we fail as a system. A lot of these patients probably had missed or late cancer diagnoses too, due to the lack of preventative care and also just the lack of public health regulations in the US. Pretty much every developed country has a better healthcare system than the US. We do not have a normal system, and many like to think of it as normal, but it is far from that. You can cherry pick data all day, but you are not seeing the big picture here, and you do not realize how easy it is to become a statistic. I nearly died from medical errors in the US healthcare system myself, and from sepsis at age 23. I am a dual US|EU citizen (culturally American) living in the EU, and I never plan on working in the US or living there long term.
- nradov 6y ago
  Very few Americans emigrate to the UK in order to gain access to healthcare. You are posting misinformation to push a political narrative.
  - disabled 6y ago
    The UK is hard to emigrate to. There are better options than the UK, especially now that they left the EU. But, the Americans who go to the UK and eventually do become UK citizens often do over healthcare. While being an American expat is not as common due to worldwide liability on taxes, many of those who emigrate to developed countries and eventually become citizens do so for guaranteed access to healthcare and other benefits of a social welfare state that the US does not have. The problem with Canada/Australia/New Zealand, where many Americans go, as we are more culturally aligned with them compared to other developed countries, is that they have medical inadmissability clauses in their immigration laws. You generally have to be pretty healthy to get a even get an approved work visa there, and stay relatively healthy to become a citizen. So, you really cannot effectively emigrate for healthcare to these countries. This is why you do not hear about Americans emigrating over healthcare as much.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  > As for the cancer patient survival, in the US, 42% of patients lose their life savings within 2 years and the amount was typically around $92,000. That alone screws American cancer patients over long term, and it can cause them to die. If you have insurance, and 80-90%+ of Americans do (and probably more among cancer patients, as they are usually older so they often qualify for Medicare), it’s extremely rare to spend $92k in 2 year. Even in the plans with the highest out of pocket maximums, these are almost never more than $10k/year. That might drain people savings anyway, but a lot of people have very little savings. I really don’t know where your data is from, but it doesn’t match the reality lived by most Americans. The US healthcare system has a lot of problems, so many that you don’t really need to make ones up.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Source for your contention that “Americans frequently emigrate to the UK?” Do you have any comparison for what cancer does to the finances of people in the UK? Because there is more to it than the cost of medical care. The cost of medical care is a lot less than that in the US: https://healthpayerintelligence.com/news/cancer-patients-paid-5.6b-out-of-pocket-cancer-costs-in-2018 https://healthpayerintelligence.com/news/cancer-patients-pai... “In a case study, a patient with lymphoma paid out-of-pocket healthcare costs from $6,446 in a large employer-sponsored health plan to $12,931 in a health plan on the individual health insurance market. These were all Affordable Care Act (ACA)-compliant plans.” Note that your survey covers 2000-2012, mostly before the ACA went into effect. The resource above says Americans spent $5.6 billion on out of pocket cancer care annually. There’s 2 million cancer cases annually, so you’re talking about $2,500 in out of pocket costs on average.

xyzzyz 6y ago

> A lot of them come for the sole purpose of having access to better and guaranteed healthcare This pretty much never happens.