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On the other hand, people here don't tend to go bankrupt and lose their house, healthcare (ironically) and life (from a social aspect) in general when they don'

On the other hand, people here don't tend to go bankrupt and lose their house, healthcare (ironically) and life (from a social aspect) in general when they don't have a perfect health. They don't have to hide their state of wellbeing from their employer in the hope of not getting fired, and they don't have to worry about living on the street because they don't have a job for a bit. Businesses are fun and all, but in practical terms, they are just sociopaths when compared to what people actually need. Don't misinterpret this as "and therefore it should be hard to have a business", but the American way is one I'd run away from if it ever tried to apply over here. I run a business and it's fine. Not amazing, not a hockeystick and I'm also not interested in either. It's fine, and that's all it needs to be.

refurb 5y ago
You know how I know you’ve never lived or worked in the US? Your characterization is laughable. 50%+ of the federal (never mind state!) budget is social programs. But apparently “there is no safety net”.
TMWNN 5y ago
>On the other hand, people here don't tend to go bankrupt and lose their house, healthcare (ironically) and life (from a social aspect) in general when they don't have a perfect health Only 4% of US bankruptcies are because of medical bills <https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/03/26/the-truth-about-medical-bankruptcies/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/0...>. A tipoff that [insert large percentage here] of bankruptcies aren't actually because of medical costs is that only 6% of bankruptcies by those without health insurance are because of that cause. The biggest cause of bankruptcies is lack of income, which health insurance doesn't affect.
- fy20 5y ago
  > The biggest cause of bankruptcies is lack of income, which health insurance doesn't affect. Maybe that 4% is correct, but for sure how to deal with paying for medical care is a big worry for many people in the US. There was a post a few days ago (or comments at least) discussing how many people working low wage jobs in the US are working 29 hours or fewer specifically so their employer doesn't need to provide health insurance. Are there social programs that cover those people, or do they just not go to the doctor when sick?
  - Talanes 5y ago
    I'm the slightly higher tier of low-wage worker that does get decent hours and benefits, and I still don't go to the doctor. My general experience when not going in to deal with a discrete injury is that I pay 50 bucks to have someone ask me some questions, shrug, and give me the card to someone else who would cost another 50 bucks that I can no longer spare.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    >There was a post a few days ago (or comments at least) discussing how many people working low wage jobs in the US are working 29 hours or fewer specifically so their employer doesn't need to provide health insurance. Are there social programs that cover those people, or do they just not go to the doctor when sick? Details vary by state, but generally Medicaid, a public insurance program, kicks in for those below a certain income level. Contrary to what Reddit would have you believe, 91% of Americans have medical insurance (<https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-271.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...>), whether through their employers, or government programs like Medicare/Medicaid. That's compared to 95-97% in other developed countries because there are always some people who fall through cracks, like (say) a Canadian who doesn't get a new provincial health care card after moving, or a German who neglects to buy into a new sickness fund after changing careers. Two thirds of Americans have private medical insurance. One third have public insurance of some type, including 20% from the aforementioned Medicaid. Some large chunk of the 4-6% differential in the US versus other countries is illegal aliens who don't qualify for public insurance and are working cash jobs that don't provide private insurance. The only such national systems with actual 100% (or as close to it as possible) coverage is something like the UK NHS, which does not have a requirement to show a membership card (because, well, there isn't one) to receive treatment.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366487/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366487/ Here is a different take from a newer paper. > The majority (58.5%) “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that medical expenses contributed, and 44.3% cited illness-related work loss; 66.5% cited at least one of these two medical contributors—equivalent to about 530 000 medical bankruptcies annually. Really though it suggests the US has both a medical bankruptcy problem as well as a missing safety net problem. I know I’m seriously thinking about leaving to avoid a likely major medical event killing my net worth in later life.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    >Here is a different take from a newer paper. This paper is by Himmelstein and Woolhandler, the same authors who wrote the earlier one that the authors the Post piece cites was responding to. As the Post piece says: >So Carlos Dobkin, Amy Finkelstein, Raymond Kluender and Matthew J. Notowidigdo did what’s called an “event study.” Instead of looking at bankruptcies to see how many involved medical bills, they started with the illness, and asked how much more likely people were to declare bankruptcy after they got sick. That’s a much better way to tease out causation than asking whether someone who just went through a financially ruinous divorce also owed his or her dermatologist thousands of dollars. In other words, it's not surprising that someone who declares bankruptcy owes medical bills among all the bills he is behind on. While "correlation is not causation" is used far too often by people who don't really understand its meaning, this is an example. Again, from the Post piece: >That jibes with what we’ve seen in the bankruptcy data since Obamacare passed. If medical bills really were driving so many people into bankruptcy, then we would have expected filings to plummet after 2013, when millions of people gained health insurance coverage. Instead we see a smooth decline from the recession-era peak.
    - dv_dt 5y ago
      I think people have a better idea of their own finances than a trying to infer it
Dma54rhs 5y ago
You need to be employed in order to get Healthcare in most of the EU countries anyway, so it's not all that rosy as Americans tend to think.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  Which countries is that exactly? I know for a fact Finland and Spain have free healthcare for the unemployed.
  - Aerroon 5y ago
    Is that for everyone or the Unemployed that you have to register to be a part of with terms & conditions? Because Estonia also gives healthcare to the Unemployed, but you have to be signed up at the job agency and I think you have to have had a job recently. If you don't fulfill some other criteria you can be taken off the list.
    - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
      For everyone in Finland at least, don't know for Spain...
- mattlondon 5y ago
  What? I think citation needed here. As far as I am aware, healthcare in most EU States is universal and not dependent on employment. Sure you can get private healthcare through employment, but the state systems is there for everyone if they need it.
  - meheleventyone 5y ago
    I think they probably mean if you move countries, for example it took a few months for me to get setup with Iceland’s health service when I moved here. But there’s easy schemes to retain cover like EHIC. https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=559 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=559
- 5y ago

refurb 5y ago

You know how I know you’ve never lived or worked in the US? Your characterization is laughable. 50%+ of the federal (never mind state!) budget is social programs. But apparently “there is no safety net”.

TMWNN 5y ago

>On the other hand, people here don't tend to go bankrupt and lose their house, healthcare (ironically) and life (from a social aspect) in general when they don't have a perfect health Only 4% of US bankruptcies are because of medical bills <https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/03/26/the-truth-about-medical-bankruptcies/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/0...>. A tipoff that [insert large percentage here] of bankruptcies aren't actually because of medical costs is that only 6% of bankruptcies by those without health insurance are because of that cause. The biggest cause of bankruptcies is lack of income, which health insurance doesn't affect.

fy20 5y ago
> The biggest cause of bankruptcies is lack of income, which health insurance doesn't affect. Maybe that 4% is correct, but for sure how to deal with paying for medical care is a big worry for many people in the US. There was a post a few days ago (or comments at least) discussing how many people working low wage jobs in the US are working 29 hours or fewer specifically so their employer doesn't need to provide health insurance. Are there social programs that cover those people, or do they just not go to the doctor when sick?
- Talanes 5y ago
  I'm the slightly higher tier of low-wage worker that does get decent hours and benefits, and I still don't go to the doctor. My general experience when not going in to deal with a discrete injury is that I pay 50 bucks to have someone ask me some questions, shrug, and give me the card to someone else who would cost another 50 bucks that I can no longer spare.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >There was a post a few days ago (or comments at least) discussing how many people working low wage jobs in the US are working 29 hours or fewer specifically so their employer doesn't need to provide health insurance. Are there social programs that cover those people, or do they just not go to the doctor when sick? Details vary by state, but generally Medicaid, a public insurance program, kicks in for those below a certain income level. Contrary to what Reddit would have you believe, 91% of Americans have medical insurance (<https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-271.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...>), whether through their employers, or government programs like Medicare/Medicaid. That's compared to 95-97% in other developed countries because there are always some people who fall through cracks, like (say) a Canadian who doesn't get a new provincial health care card after moving, or a German who neglects to buy into a new sickness fund after changing careers. Two thirds of Americans have private medical insurance. One third have public insurance of some type, including 20% from the aforementioned Medicaid. Some large chunk of the 4-6% differential in the US versus other countries is illegal aliens who don't qualify for public insurance and are working cash jobs that don't provide private insurance. The only such national systems with actual 100% (or as close to it as possible) coverage is something like the UK NHS, which does not have a requirement to show a membership card (because, well, there isn't one) to receive treatment.
dv_dt 5y ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366487/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366487/ Here is a different take from a newer paper. > The majority (58.5%) “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that medical expenses contributed, and 44.3% cited illness-related work loss; 66.5% cited at least one of these two medical contributors—equivalent to about 530 000 medical bankruptcies annually. Really though it suggests the US has both a medical bankruptcy problem as well as a missing safety net problem. I know I’m seriously thinking about leaving to avoid a likely major medical event killing my net worth in later life.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >Here is a different take from a newer paper. This paper is by Himmelstein and Woolhandler, the same authors who wrote the earlier one that the authors the Post piece cites was responding to. As the Post piece says: >So Carlos Dobkin, Amy Finkelstein, Raymond Kluender and Matthew J. Notowidigdo did what’s called an “event study.” Instead of looking at bankruptcies to see how many involved medical bills, they started with the illness, and asked how much more likely people were to declare bankruptcy after they got sick. That’s a much better way to tease out causation than asking whether someone who just went through a financially ruinous divorce also owed his or her dermatologist thousands of dollars. In other words, it's not surprising that someone who declares bankruptcy owes medical bills among all the bills he is behind on. While "correlation is not causation" is used far too often by people who don't really understand its meaning, this is an example. Again, from the Post piece: >That jibes with what we’ve seen in the bankruptcy data since Obamacare passed. If medical bills really were driving so many people into bankruptcy, then we would have expected filings to plummet after 2013, when millions of people gained health insurance coverage. Instead we see a smooth decline from the recession-era peak.
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    I think people have a better idea of their own finances than a trying to infer it

Dma54rhs 5y ago

You need to be employed in order to get Healthcare in most of the EU countries anyway, so it's not all that rosy as Americans tend to think.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
Which countries is that exactly? I know for a fact Finland and Spain have free healthcare for the unemployed.
- Aerroon 5y ago
  Is that for everyone or the Unemployed that you have to register to be a part of with terms & conditions? Because Estonia also gives healthcare to the Unemployed, but you have to be signed up at the job agency and I think you have to have had a job recently. If you don't fulfill some other criteria you can be taken off the list.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    For everyone in Finland at least, don't know for Spain...
mattlondon 5y ago
What? I think citation needed here. As far as I am aware, healthcare in most EU States is universal and not dependent on employment. Sure you can get private healthcare through employment, but the state systems is there for everyone if they need it.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  I think they probably mean if you move countries, for example it took a few months for me to get setup with Iceland’s health service when I moved here. But there’s easy schemes to retain cover like EHIC. https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=559 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=559
5y ago