4 ms·

Almost every country on earth outside of aberrations with atypical revenue sources are much poorer than the US. Government healthcare is not an unambiguous win;

by wyager 5y ago

Almost every country on earth outside of aberrations with atypical revenue sources are much poorer than the US. Government healthcare is not an unambiguous win; at best, it moves you around on the Pareto frontier. Americans can identify this at some level and are skeptical of adopting political changes that would make us more like other (poorer) countries.

dboreham 5y ago
Meanwhile spending 1/6 of that massive GDP on healthcare...
- wyager 5y ago
  Yeah, we do spend too much money buying very cost-ineffective healthcare for old people who are about to die anyway. Medicare is a utilitarian disaster.
katbyte 5y ago
I always hear this but dont think I’ve see proof - can you link to some?
- wyager 5y ago
  This is a very broad request. Pick any metric of wealth (GDPPC is an OK start) and google “list of countries by <wealth metric>”. Dev salaries in different countries are something most people on HN should be familiar with - US is typically 2-5x higher than other first world countries.
hbrav 5y ago
Most of the EU has some form of universal health care. So does the UK, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Singapore. Those aren't poor countries.
- wyager 5y ago
  EU countries except the ones I mentioned (with unusual revenue source) are generally much poorer than the US. So are Canada, Japan, South Korea. Even Singapore is slightly poorer per capita than US, and it has a lot of advantages. You can say “they’re not poor countries” - this is a meaningless subjective threshold. They are (sometimes a lot) poorer than the US. Look at every single country richer than the US - they all have some unusual revenue source (oil, tax refuge, financial services, etc.) (and most of that money comes from the US)
  - hbrav 5y ago
    Having lived in the UK and in Canada, I am very comfortable saying that: "they're not poor countries". We can discuss where the threshold is, but if you seriously want to class the UK or Canada as "poor" countries, you're quite disconnected from reality. If you want some more concrete figures, there's a median income table on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income The US has a significantly higher median income than some countries on my list, but not by the 2-5x I saw you claiming on another comment. I'll note that there are also some that are very close to the US and do not have an unusual revenue source: Canada, Austria, Australia and Sweden.
    - wyager 5y ago
      > We can discuss where the threshold is, It doesn't matter what arbitrary threshold we pick. Relative to the USA, they are poor. Having half as much productivity per person is relative poverty. I'm not willing to give up half my income (probably actually more for me, given the industry I work in) for some relatively minor putative social benefits like explicitly nationalizing health insurance. > not by the 2-5x I was talking about dev salaries, not median income (although median income is also quite different). > Canada, Austria, Australia and Sweden. GDPPC: Canada: USA 38% higher Austria: USA 28% higher Australia: USA 10% higher Sweden: USA 15% higher I'll admit that AUS and SWE are reasonably close. Canada is quite a lot poorer...
      - 5y ago

by wyager 5y ago

dboreham 5y ago

Meanwhile spending 1/6 of that massive GDP on healthcare...

wyager 5y ago
Yeah, we do spend too much money buying very cost-ineffective healthcare for old people who are about to die anyway. Medicare is a utilitarian disaster.

katbyte 5y ago

I always hear this but dont think I’ve see proof - can you link to some?

wyager 5y ago
This is a very broad request. Pick any metric of wealth (GDPPC is an OK start) and google “list of countries by <wealth metric>”. Dev salaries in different countries are something most people on HN should be familiar with - US is typically 2-5x higher than other first world countries.

hbrav 5y ago

Most of the EU has some form of universal health care. So does the UK, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Singapore. Those aren't poor countries.

wyager 5y ago
EU countries except the ones I mentioned (with unusual revenue source) are generally much poorer than the US. So are Canada, Japan, South Korea. Even Singapore is slightly poorer per capita than US, and it has a lot of advantages. You can say “they’re not poor countries” - this is a meaningless subjective threshold. They are (sometimes a lot) poorer than the US. Look at every single country richer than the US - they all have some unusual revenue source (oil, tax refuge, financial services, etc.) (and most of that money comes from the US)
- hbrav 5y ago
  Having lived in the UK and in Canada, I am very comfortable saying that: "they're not poor countries". We can discuss where the threshold is, but if you seriously want to class the UK or Canada as "poor" countries, you're quite disconnected from reality. If you want some more concrete figures, there's a median income table on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income The US has a significantly higher median income than some countries on my list, but not by the 2-5x I saw you claiming on another comment. I'll note that there are also some that are very close to the US and do not have an unusual revenue source: Canada, Austria, Australia and Sweden.
  - wyager 5y ago
    > We can discuss where the threshold is, It doesn't matter what arbitrary threshold we pick. Relative to the USA, they are poor. Having half as much productivity per person is relative poverty. I'm not willing to give up half my income (probably actually more for me, given the industry I work in) for some relatively minor putative social benefits like explicitly nationalizing health insurance. > not by the 2-5x I was talking about dev salaries, not median income (although median income is also quite different). > Canada, Austria, Australia and Sweden. GDPPC: Canada: USA 38% higher Austria: USA 28% higher Australia: USA 10% higher Sweden: USA 15% higher I'll admit that AUS and SWE are reasonably close. Canada is quite a lot poorer...
    - 5y ago