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Being able to do things like this is one of the things that makes me want to emigrate to the US. Healthcare is a huge showstopper though. But if it turns out th

Being able to do things like this is one of the things that makes me want to emigrate to the US. Healthcare is a huge showstopper though. But if it turns out that private costs more or less what I pay in taxes in Europe then maybe I'll reconsider.

SCUSKU 3y ago
Another PITA is that even if you have insurance you have to go to in network providers. I’m insured and went to the local CVS to get a flu and COVID shot but they said I was out of network, so insurance wouldn’t cover it. Out of pocket was $63 for Flu and $198 for COVID. I still haven’t got my shots.
junofan 3y ago
Maybe don’t believe everything you read on the internet haha.
- i_am_a_peasant 3y ago
  No idea what you're referring to here. I've visited the US several times and have lived in Europe most of my life. I've needed to be hospitalized a few times in my life and I didn't need to pay anything, anything.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    In the US you pay an annual deductible of like $2k for a good health insurance plan. Just take that off of your salary that is $50k greater than your European counter part and you’re good to go. Like GP said, the Internet is very misleading about this. Healthcare is OK for the middle class and that’s why there isn’t enough pressure to change it.
    - yakz 3y ago
      This is not even remotely correct. In the US, you usually pay a monthly premium which is only a portion of the actual cost, and the remainder is paid by your employer. On top of that, yes, you pay your deductible. A $2,000 deductible could be considered a low deductible--it could be double that or more with lower premiums. After that, you have the "out-of-pocket" maximum. You pay 20% of costs until you hit the "out-of-pocket" maximum, which is typically thousands of dollars per year. Beyond that, there are actually two different deductibles and two different out-of-pocket maximums. One for in-network services, and one for out-of-network services. You can go to an in-network facility and see out-of-network providers without notice. And even beyond that, while it has been curbed with some recent legislation, if your insurance provider decides to pay less than the provider believes they are owed, the provider can bill you independently for the remainder. So NO, it is definitely not $2k per year for a good health insurance plan in the US. FAR from it.
      - mciancia 3y ago
        So, if not $2k then how much more? How much is this monthly premium? We are talking about 50USD, 500USD, more? You say out of pocket is in thousands per year - so I assume <10k? I wonder what is upper bound of yearly cost for having same or better level of healthcare as in Europe. If that's like 15k a year, than I would assume, at least for SWEs, it still makes a lot of sense to go to US - pay difference is huge. I would not be surprised that even you you would count 50k a year for medical it could still make a lot of sense to move to US if you are good - I don't hear that much about 300k, 400k or more TC per year in EU
        MRtecno98 3y ago
        It's not only insurance, rent and cost of living in general is (on average) higher in the US, partly because of the higher wages
        maxerickson 3y ago
        It's plan dependent. Lots of people will have an out of pocket maximum that is less than $10,000. The premiums will also vary, but probably a few hundred for most employer plans.
        tiahura 3y ago
        How much is this monthly premium? We are talking about 50USD, 500USD, more? If you don’t know how much monthly insurance premiums are, you probably shouldn’t be arguing about the topic?
        Reubachi 3y ago
        That person you're replying to isn't the original commenter who implied that it's cheaper to get healthcare in US due to salarys.
        ffgjgf1 3y ago
        Maybe you should you should be asking this the person that comment was aimed at? Because all of those things they mentioned are heavily dependent on the premium which they decided to omit in those hypothetical calculations
    - Reubachi 3y ago
      Untrue. There are maximum amounts for everything, co pays, and premiums. Did you forget all those? I have had to redo my teeth due to a medical issue. My insurance paid for the medical issue. My teeth though? This year alone I've spent 13k out of pocket after maxing out my dental insurance. Next year will be the same. and the year after. And I'm paying for insurance while paying all of this.
- kcb 3y ago
  "Oh no, I've got the flu, guess I have to declare bankruptcy again." -How Europeans think US healthcare works
primax 3y ago
Agreed. And honestly, not having to worry that my kids will be shot in school is a big psychological comfort
- thegrim33 3y ago
  In the last 53 years, there have been 2,057 shooting fatalities in K-12 schools in the US [0]. That's an average of 38 per year. As of 2020, there were 56,282,248 K-12 enrolled students [1]. So there's a .000067% chance that any given one of those students will be shot and killed in any given year. That's what you're worried about? A .000067% chance? You must live a life of crippling fear then, the number of things more deadly to your kids than .000067% is staggering. I assume you never let them enter a vehicle of any kind, for example. By the way, of that 38 per year number, less than 10% happens inside a classroom [0]. The most likely location is outside in the school parking lot, a violent dispute between students, and not a "mass shooting" scenario. So if you were mostly concerned about "mass shootings", the odds of death are over 10 times less than .000067%. [0] https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/k-12-school-shooting-statistics-everyone-should-know/ https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/k-12-school-shoo... [1] https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-12-education/k-12-enrollment/ https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-...
  - jaapbadlands 3y ago
    Weird flex
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      I’m not sure pointing out that worrying about that is not particularly rational is a flex.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    This is a sadly all too-common approach to analysing risk and reflecting back the "absurdity" of people's fears (and TBH, I used to do it myself). Psychological experience of risk (fear) has a large component related to the degree to which a person has control over their exposure, combined with the worst possible (rather than typical) outcome. So for example, statistically speaking very few black Americans will ever be assaulted by the police but no black American can feel remotely in control of whether or not this may happen to them. And the outcome may include death as a possibility. Statistically speaking, very few women will be assaulted walking down the street (even at night) but essentially no women can feel that they have any control over whether this happens or not. And the outcome may include death as a possibility. And so it is with school shootings: yes, statistically speaking it is a vanishingly small chance. But neither parents nor students (nor teachers) have any level of control over whether such an incident will take place in their school, and the worst case scenario is death. When people feel they lack the agency to control whether or not a bad outcome is more or less likely in their lives, the actual statistics of the outcome tend to fade into dramatically lower significance.
midasuni 3y ago
If you’re earning 5 times median wages it might work out - America looks after it’s rich. If you’re on less then not likely But remember it’s not just your bank balance. Do you really want to live in a society where your neighbour can’t afford treatment for cancer? Or where your nephew gets weekly “active shooter” drills? Where you get two weeks a year holiday if you’re lucky?
- i_am_a_peasant 3y ago
  > Do you really want to live in a society where your neighbour can’t afford treatment for cancer? Maybe? I would like to live in a society where there's no hard ceiling on what you can achieve if you have the competency and some luck. Do you think it's easier to become a millionaire in the EU or the US? It feels like there's very little social mobility in Europe compared to the US.
  - kgabis 3y ago
    Social mobility is much higher in the EU than in the US [0]. Being a millionaire in the US still doesn't guarantee that you won't go bankrupt due to a cancer treatment. [0] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/americans-overestimate-social-mobility-in-their-country https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...
    - zpeti 3y ago
      This is not an equivalent comparison. In Europe many cancer treatments are simply not paid for by social health care, because it's too expensive or experimental. Rich people still go to private health care providers for more niche treatments, or simply for shorter waiting lists. What you have in Europe is - long wait lists, for everyone, and fewer numbers of actual treatments (plus many things not covered by social health care, e.g. dentists) What you have in US is - no wait lists, healthcare that's probably 2-3x as expensive, but you actually can get the best of the best treatment if you pay for it Clearly for poorer layers of society the US system is bad. But for society as a whole I would question which system is actually better. They both have bad and good parts. To be honest if the US actually implemented a real market system for health care, and prices would drop a bit (with the kind of stuff Mark Cuban is building), the US health system would be FAR superior than Europe, even if its not free.
dotancohen 3y ago
It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
rkangel 3y ago
Even if you just look at healthcare, consider that in the US even the well insured can only afford to be ill once. After that, your insurance becomes expensive, and you're usually not covered for a whole set of potentially related things.
- maxerickson 3y ago
  That isn't how job related insurance or ACA market insurance works. For ACA plans, the premiums can factor in age and smoking status. That's it. Job related insurance is generally take it or leave it at a fixed price.
- kcb 3y ago
  That's not how that works.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  Wasn’t that made illegal at least ~15 years ago?
ArlenBales 3y ago
It's odd to me when people generalize the whole of Europe when it comes to healthcare. The quality of welfare/healthcare in Eastern Europe for example is very different than what Nordic countries like Sweden and Norway offer (they are typically considered the highest quality of living in Europe), or Spain or France. Likewise, the same can be said of the United States. Quality of private healthcare is going to depend greatly where you are. Remote areas and smaller towns and cities are not going to have access to top-quality physicians like larger cities will have. But, top-quality physicians will have very long waiting lists. I'm currently on the waiting list for a top-national orthopedic surgeon in the Bay Area and my total appointment wait is 5 months.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mensetmanusman 3y ago
If you have a good job in the US healthcare is fine.

SCUSKU 3y ago

Another PITA is that even if you have insurance you have to go to in network providers. I’m insured and went to the local CVS to get a flu and COVID shot but they said I was out of network, so insurance wouldn’t cover it. Out of pocket was $63 for Flu and $198 for COVID. I still haven’t got my shots.

junofan 3y ago

Maybe don’t believe everything you read on the internet haha.

i_am_a_peasant 3y ago
No idea what you're referring to here. I've visited the US several times and have lived in Europe most of my life. I've needed to be hospitalized a few times in my life and I didn't need to pay anything, anything.
- kortilla 3y ago
  In the US you pay an annual deductible of like $2k for a good health insurance plan. Just take that off of your salary that is $50k greater than your European counter part and you’re good to go. Like GP said, the Internet is very misleading about this. Healthcare is OK for the middle class and that’s why there isn’t enough pressure to change it.
  - yakz 3y ago
    This is not even remotely correct. In the US, you usually pay a monthly premium which is only a portion of the actual cost, and the remainder is paid by your employer. On top of that, yes, you pay your deductible. A $2,000 deductible could be considered a low deductible--it could be double that or more with lower premiums. After that, you have the "out-of-pocket" maximum. You pay 20% of costs until you hit the "out-of-pocket" maximum, which is typically thousands of dollars per year. Beyond that, there are actually two different deductibles and two different out-of-pocket maximums. One for in-network services, and one for out-of-network services. You can go to an in-network facility and see out-of-network providers without notice. And even beyond that, while it has been curbed with some recent legislation, if your insurance provider decides to pay less than the provider believes they are owed, the provider can bill you independently for the remainder. So NO, it is definitely not $2k per year for a good health insurance plan in the US. FAR from it.
    - mciancia 3y ago
      So, if not $2k then how much more? How much is this monthly premium? We are talking about 50USD, 500USD, more? You say out of pocket is in thousands per year - so I assume <10k? I wonder what is upper bound of yearly cost for having same or better level of healthcare as in Europe. If that's like 15k a year, than I would assume, at least for SWEs, it still makes a lot of sense to go to US - pay difference is huge. I would not be surprised that even you you would count 50k a year for medical it could still make a lot of sense to move to US if you are good - I don't hear that much about 300k, 400k or more TC per year in EU
      - MRtecno98 3y ago
        It's not only insurance, rent and cost of living in general is (on average) higher in the US, partly because of the higher wages
      - maxerickson 3y ago
        It's plan dependent. Lots of people will have an out of pocket maximum that is less than $10,000. The premiums will also vary, but probably a few hundred for most employer plans.
      - tiahura 3y ago
        How much is this monthly premium? We are talking about 50USD, 500USD, more? If you don’t know how much monthly insurance premiums are, you probably shouldn’t be arguing about the topic?
        Reubachi 3y ago
        That person you're replying to isn't the original commenter who implied that it's cheaper to get healthcare in US due to salarys.
        ffgjgf1 3y ago
        Maybe you should you should be asking this the person that comment was aimed at? Because all of those things they mentioned are heavily dependent on the premium which they decided to omit in those hypothetical calculations
  - Reubachi 3y ago
    Untrue. There are maximum amounts for everything, co pays, and premiums. Did you forget all those? I have had to redo my teeth due to a medical issue. My insurance paid for the medical issue. My teeth though? This year alone I've spent 13k out of pocket after maxing out my dental insurance. Next year will be the same. and the year after. And I'm paying for insurance while paying all of this.
kcb 3y ago
"Oh no, I've got the flu, guess I have to declare bankruptcy again." -How Europeans think US healthcare works

primax 3y ago

Agreed. And honestly, not having to worry that my kids will be shot in school is a big psychological comfort

thegrim33 3y ago
In the last 53 years, there have been 2,057 shooting fatalities in K-12 schools in the US [0]. That's an average of 38 per year. As of 2020, there were 56,282,248 K-12 enrolled students [1]. So there's a .000067% chance that any given one of those students will be shot and killed in any given year. That's what you're worried about? A .000067% chance? You must live a life of crippling fear then, the number of things more deadly to your kids than .000067% is staggering. I assume you never let them enter a vehicle of any kind, for example. By the way, of that 38 per year number, less than 10% happens inside a classroom [0]. The most likely location is outside in the school parking lot, a violent dispute between students, and not a "mass shooting" scenario. So if you were mostly concerned about "mass shootings", the odds of death are over 10 times less than .000067%. [0] https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/k-12-school-shooting-statistics-everyone-should-know/ https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/k-12-school-shoo... [1] https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-12-education/k-12-enrollment/ https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-...
- jaapbadlands 3y ago
  Weird flex
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    I’m not sure pointing out that worrying about that is not particularly rational is a flex.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  This is a sadly all too-common approach to analysing risk and reflecting back the "absurdity" of people's fears (and TBH, I used to do it myself). Psychological experience of risk (fear) has a large component related to the degree to which a person has control over their exposure, combined with the worst possible (rather than typical) outcome. So for example, statistically speaking very few black Americans will ever be assaulted by the police but no black American can feel remotely in control of whether or not this may happen to them. And the outcome may include death as a possibility. Statistically speaking, very few women will be assaulted walking down the street (even at night) but essentially no women can feel that they have any control over whether this happens or not. And the outcome may include death as a possibility. And so it is with school shootings: yes, statistically speaking it is a vanishingly small chance. But neither parents nor students (nor teachers) have any level of control over whether such an incident will take place in their school, and the worst case scenario is death. When people feel they lack the agency to control whether or not a bad outcome is more or less likely in their lives, the actual statistics of the outcome tend to fade into dramatically lower significance.

midasuni 3y ago

If you’re earning 5 times median wages it might work out - America looks after it’s rich. If you’re on less then not likely But remember it’s not just your bank balance. Do you really want to live in a society where your neighbour can’t afford treatment for cancer? Or where your nephew gets weekly “active shooter” drills? Where you get two weeks a year holiday if you’re lucky?

i_am_a_peasant 3y ago
> Do you really want to live in a society where your neighbour can’t afford treatment for cancer? Maybe? I would like to live in a society where there's no hard ceiling on what you can achieve if you have the competency and some luck. Do you think it's easier to become a millionaire in the EU or the US? It feels like there's very little social mobility in Europe compared to the US.
- kgabis 3y ago
  Social mobility is much higher in the EU than in the US [0]. Being a millionaire in the US still doesn't guarantee that you won't go bankrupt due to a cancer treatment. [0] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/americans-overestimate-social-mobility-in-their-country https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...
  - zpeti 3y ago
    This is not an equivalent comparison. In Europe many cancer treatments are simply not paid for by social health care, because it's too expensive or experimental. Rich people still go to private health care providers for more niche treatments, or simply for shorter waiting lists. What you have in Europe is - long wait lists, for everyone, and fewer numbers of actual treatments (plus many things not covered by social health care, e.g. dentists) What you have in US is - no wait lists, healthcare that's probably 2-3x as expensive, but you actually can get the best of the best treatment if you pay for it Clearly for poorer layers of society the US system is bad. But for society as a whole I would question which system is actually better. They both have bad and good parts. To be honest if the US actually implemented a real market system for health care, and prices would drop a bit (with the kind of stuff Mark Cuban is building), the US health system would be FAR superior than Europe, even if its not free.

dotancohen 3y ago

It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

rkangel 3y ago

Even if you just look at healthcare, consider that in the US even the well insured can only afford to be ill once. After that, your insurance becomes expensive, and you're usually not covered for a whole set of potentially related things.

maxerickson 3y ago
That isn't how job related insurance or ACA market insurance works. For ACA plans, the premiums can factor in age and smoking status. That's it. Job related insurance is generally take it or leave it at a fixed price.
kcb 3y ago
That's not how that works.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
Wasn’t that made illegal at least ~15 years ago?

ArlenBales 3y ago

It's odd to me when people generalize the whole of Europe when it comes to healthcare. The quality of welfare/healthcare in Eastern Europe for example is very different than what Nordic countries like Sweden and Norway offer (they are typically considered the highest quality of living in Europe), or Spain or France. Likewise, the same can be said of the United States. Quality of private healthcare is going to depend greatly where you are. Remote areas and smaller towns and cities are not going to have access to top-quality physicians like larger cities will have. But, top-quality physicians will have very long waiting lists. I'm currently on the waiting list for a top-national orthopedic surgeon in the Bay Area and my total appointment wait is 5 months.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mensetmanusman 3y ago

If you have a good job in the US healthcare is fine.