4 ms·

The quality of care you did receive in those countries may have been lesser, but what could you have gotten if you paid as much there as you pay in the US?

• AmericanChopper 3y ago
  > but what could you have gotten if you paid as much there as you pay in the US? If you ignore the fact that I was already paying substantially more for it with higher taxes, the answer is still nothing. Countries with public healthcare don’t have expansive private healthcare systems, and nowhere in the world has a healthcare system that offers the level of service that the US system does. For example my sister was giving birth in New Zealand, and I wanted to just pay out of pocket for a private hospital for her. There are zero private hospitals in the country that offer this service, so her only option was to go to her local (and notoriously bad) hospital. She remained in the maternity ward for nearly a week, because while she was there that hospital had its 15th norovirus outbreak for the year.
  • beej71 3y ago
    Last I checked, Americans already pay more tax for health care than anybody except the Norwegians.
    • AmericanChopper 3y ago
      Overall perhaps, but the taxes I paid in NZ were much, much higher than what I paid in the US, even when accounting for health insurance and other out of pocket costs.
      • beej71 3y ago
        Here's an interesting chart on the matter: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/154e8143-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/154e8143-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/154e8143-en/index.html?i...
        • AmericanChopper 3y ago
          Per capita statistics have no affect on me personally given the level of taxes I paid in the US and NZ was substantially higher than their respective per capita averages.
  • causi 3y ago
    The maternal mortality rate for the US is 4.7 times higher than New Zealand's. The infant mortality rate is 61% higher.
    • AmericanChopper 3y ago
      I could also cherry-pick some statistics to try prove a point. But the point I’m actually making is that the healthcare I had access to in the US was far better than the healthcare I had access to in New Zealand (or anywhere else), regardless of how much I was willing to pay. Complaints about systemic issue of healthcare costs in the US are perfectly valid (and there are other somewhat unique problems with it as well). But are completely seperate from the fact that the best healthcare facilities, and most qualified healthcare professionals in the world are generally located in the US.
      • causi 3y ago
        the healthcare I had access to in the US was far better than the healthcare I had access to in New Zealand (or anywhere else), regardless of how much I was willing to pay. Can you back that up with data?
        • AmericanChopper 3y ago
          You mean like my healthcare records?…
          • causi 3y ago
            The numbers I've seen do not support your position. If your opinion is based on evidence, show me that evidence. I'm willing to change my mind, but not based simply on "trust me bro".
        • AnthonyMouse 3y ago
          The US has some of the best healthcare providers in the world. They also have some very bad ones. But gains are harder to achieve than losses in healthcare, so when you average in the bottom of the barrel you get some bad numbers even if both the median and the best available provider is above the international average. Basically, healthcare quality in places that are both very rural and very poor (e.g. West Virginia and Mississippi) can be awful and it brings down the average even though the system provides better outcomes for most people in most other parts of the US.
  • ianburrell 3y ago
    Lots of countries with universal healthcare have private insurance and healthcare. Public healthcare is pretty rare, Britain and Canada are the main examples, and Canada is only one that bans private healthcare. Switzerland is good example of country with required private health insurance. France is mostly public insurance but healthcare is mostly private.