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And I've updated my post to point out the mountain of US post-tax healthcare spending, that in the UK, largely comes out of pre-tax pounds. At the end of the d
by vkou 3y ago
And I've updated my post to point out the mountain of US post-tax healthcare spending, that in the UK, largely comes out of pre-tax pounds.
At the end of the day, Americans still pay, and pay more. 26% in taxes, and then another ~11% in non-government-covered (non-Medicare/Medicaid) healthcare spending.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> At the end of the day, Americans still pay, and pay more They pay less in taxes, by a wide margin. They also get less for them, by a wide margin, particularly (but not exclusively) in healthcare.
- vkou 3y agoI've been corrected (my initial data was wrong, I've updated my post), and I agree on both points. I do, however, posit that when it comes to determining whether an economy/society/??? is healthy (which is the conversation in this sub-thread), we need to look at all of these 'costs of life/business'. So, yes, the sticker price on the UK looks rough, but add it all up... And it comes out to be pretty similar. As it turns out, providing similar forms of services costs... About the same, across the developed world.
- armitron 3y agoReally? I have top of the line healthcare through my employer in the US, which also covers my wife and teenage daughters, which costs me essentially nothing. NHS in the UK is collapsing, but even if it didn't, qualitatively it's orders of magnitude worse than what one would receive in the US through one's employer: Months to years for an appointment, incompetent doctors and a bureaucracy that puts Kafka to shame. https://www.economist.com/britain/2022/04/30/the-nhs-is-in-seriously-poor-shape https://www.economist.com/britain/2022/04/30/the-nhs-is-in-s... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/02/collapse-nhs-tragically-predictable/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/02/collapse-nhs-tra... Yes US healthcare has issues but it's nowhere near as bad as UK.
- ohgodplsno 3y agoSo you have an employer paying tens of thousands a year to get you health insurance, leading to a situation where only the most well off can have access to healthcare. The NHS is struggling because there's a shit load of people to treat with very little means. The US healthcare system is doing well because it leeches money off of the most well off and lets the poorest die.
- scott_w 3y agoThe NHS is struggling because the Tory government is deliberately running it down. You didn’t see the many crises it faces under Labour.
- ohgodplsno 3y agoAlso yes, starving the beast is their favourite activity.
- ztrww 3y agoI think https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=US-GB-DE-FR https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... combined with ever increasing inequality offers a much better explanation. Inequality is high in the US too but at least they have a lot of growth which means that the bottom 80% or so are at least not getting poorer.
- 3y ago