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Not that I'm trying to make you feel worse about it: In the UK we pay less per capita in taxes toward healthcare than you do in the US (or at least did last I a

by vidarh 2y ago

Not that I'm trying to make you feel worse about it: In the UK we pay less per capita in taxes toward healthcare than you do in the US (or at least did last I added up the numbers - Medicare and Medicaid alone added up to a higher per capita cost than the NHS), and if we do want private health insurance, which here is basically "queue skip insurance", it costs a fraction of in the US because they only need to provide the "extras" - you'll normally try your NHS GP first, call your insurer if you can't get an appointment, or ask them to refer you privately for things there are queues to get done on the NHS. For a lot of elective procedures, the price is even low enough that it'd pay you to fly to the UK and stay in a hotel to get things done here if the recovery isn't too long.

simonbarker87 2y ago
> For a lot of elective procedures, the price is even low enough that it'd pay you to fly to the UK and stay in a hotel to get things done here if the recovery isn't too long. But please don’t do this. Our system is better than the US but private is now starting to struggle along with the NHS wait times as more people use their private coverage where they wouldn’t have done before.
- Trhoe3849 2y ago
  Flying to UK for cheap healthcare is a sick joke. There are much better countries for medical tourism: Thailand, Malaysia, Greece...
  - vidarh 2y ago
    If you want it as cheap as possible, sure. The point was not that it's the cheapest option but that even a high cost country like the UK is still cheap enough to be viable destination. But the UK does attract a significant amount of medical tourism, and has hospitals specifically targeting an international clientele who clearly considers it a good balance of cost and quality.
ein0p 2y ago
The US is so corrupt that I’m afraid any attempt at universal healthcare would make it even more expensive. Obamacare was basically a trillion dollar giveaway to Big Pharma and Big Healthcare. The only positive thing I can see in it for me personally is that it became possible to buy (extremely expensive) healthcare privately rather than through an employer, and you could not be denied due to pre-existing condition. Don’t get me wrong, that’s significant, but the insurance is now three times the price it was before Obamacare and the actual care is much worse. And both the cost and quality/availability seem to be trending in the wrong direction. I guess what I wanted to say is, lucky you. Hold onto that NHS for dear life and resist any attempt to privatize it. It’s very much a one way street.
- netsharc 2y ago
  Obama himself has said to that Obamacare (well ACA) is like (to use my own analogy) a "patch" on a a system that can't just be reimplemented (most of it due to political reasons). It's not terrific but it's what was able to be done. Whereas e.g. single payer was an unachievable pipe dream from where they were standing in 2008/09. And he'd rather have something a bit better rather than go for the excellent system and fail and be left with the bad system.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    And why was it "an unachievable pipe dream"? As I remember it, the Democrats had control of both houses of Congress, as well as the White House, for about 2 years. They could have passed anything they wanted.
    - tstrimple 2y ago
      Joe Lieberman sabotaged the public option.
      - chgs 2y ago
        If one person has such power you aren’t really in a democracy
xvector 2y ago
In the UK you also pay insane taxes and your _median_ citizen in the UK has far less disposable income after all expenses including healthcare, according to OECD metrics. In software engineering specifically, I'd make a third of my current income in the UK. I'd much rather make 3x as much in the US and still get free healthcare through my employer, with shorter waiting lists and better treatment outcomes than the NHS. And we also have "skip the line" services here as well. My family have worked as doctors both in the UK (NHS and private), and the US, and they vastly prefer the US system from an outcomes and efficiency perspective. --- Commonwealth Fund studies like the one in the article tend to be quite biased and pushing a very specific agenda. But in reality, we have far better mortality rates (1) for serious diseases: 48% better outcomes for cancer, as an example. When people with serious problems want treatment, they come to our system if they can afford it, because we actually do have better outcomes regardless of what these highly biased studies say. 1: https://www.politico.eu/article/cancer-europe-america-comparison/ https://www.politico.eu/article/cancer-europe-america-compar... --- Edit: People calling my argument a "strawman" should really try living in both systems for a year with a chronic, serious health condition. They will very quickly find that the US system is far better than the NHS. We get seen more quickly, our doctors can afford to actually spend time on us, more effort goes into root-causing a problem, we have more treatment options, etc. It's easy to theorycraft online and look at the "on paper" metrics from highly biased studies and come to the wrong conclusions.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  > your software engineers make a third of what they make here Is this topic for discussing health care systems or the SW engineering salary dick measuring Olympics? Because those are two different unrelated topics. Which country pays its software engineers the most is not some yardstick for measuring national quality of life of its average citizens, and whether SW engineers get paid a lot is totally irelevant to the people who are not working or aspiring to be SW engineers. I bet the disabled US vets, homeless people or McDonalds workers in the states also don't give a fuck that their SW engineers are the best paid in the world but would probably feel a bit cheated learning that despite living and paying taxes in the richest country in the world, their peers in poorer EU countries get much more benefits and better quality of life.

by vidarh 2y ago

simonbarker87 2y ago

> For a lot of elective procedures, the price is even low enough that it'd pay you to fly to the UK and stay in a hotel to get things done here if the recovery isn't too long. But please don’t do this. Our system is better than the US but private is now starting to struggle along with the NHS wait times as more people use their private coverage where they wouldn’t have done before.

Trhoe3849 2y ago
Flying to UK for cheap healthcare is a sick joke. There are much better countries for medical tourism: Thailand, Malaysia, Greece...
- vidarh 2y ago
  If you want it as cheap as possible, sure. The point was not that it's the cheapest option but that even a high cost country like the UK is still cheap enough to be viable destination. But the UK does attract a significant amount of medical tourism, and has hospitals specifically targeting an international clientele who clearly considers it a good balance of cost and quality.

ein0p 2y ago

The US is so corrupt that I’m afraid any attempt at universal healthcare would make it even more expensive. Obamacare was basically a trillion dollar giveaway to Big Pharma and Big Healthcare. The only positive thing I can see in it for me personally is that it became possible to buy (extremely expensive) healthcare privately rather than through an employer, and you could not be denied due to pre-existing condition. Don’t get me wrong, that’s significant, but the insurance is now three times the price it was before Obamacare and the actual care is much worse. And both the cost and quality/availability seem to be trending in the wrong direction. I guess what I wanted to say is, lucky you. Hold onto that NHS for dear life and resist any attempt to privatize it. It’s very much a one way street.

netsharc 2y ago
Obama himself has said to that Obamacare (well ACA) is like (to use my own analogy) a "patch" on a a system that can't just be reimplemented (most of it due to political reasons). It's not terrific but it's what was able to be done. Whereas e.g. single payer was an unachievable pipe dream from where they were standing in 2008/09. And he'd rather have something a bit better rather than go for the excellent system and fail and be left with the bad system.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  And why was it "an unachievable pipe dream"? As I remember it, the Democrats had control of both houses of Congress, as well as the White House, for about 2 years. They could have passed anything they wanted.
  - tstrimple 2y ago
    Joe Lieberman sabotaged the public option.
    - chgs 2y ago
      If one person has such power you aren’t really in a democracy

xvector 2y ago

In the UK you also pay insane taxes and your _median_ citizen in the UK has far less disposable income after all expenses including healthcare, according to OECD metrics. In software engineering specifically, I'd make a third of my current income in the UK. I'd much rather make 3x as much in the US and still get free healthcare through my employer, with shorter waiting lists and better treatment outcomes than the NHS. And we also have "skip the line" services here as well. My family have worked as doctors both in the UK (NHS and private), and the US, and they vastly prefer the US system from an outcomes and efficiency perspective. --- Commonwealth Fund studies like the one in the article tend to be quite biased and pushing a very specific agenda. But in reality, we have far better mortality rates (1) for serious diseases: 48% better outcomes for cancer, as an example. When people with serious problems want treatment, they come to our system if they can afford it, because we actually do have better outcomes regardless of what these highly biased studies say. 1: https://www.politico.eu/article/cancer-europe-america-comparison/ https://www.politico.eu/article/cancer-europe-america-compar... --- Edit: People calling my argument a "strawman" should really try living in both systems for a year with a chronic, serious health condition. They will very quickly find that the US system is far better than the NHS. We get seen more quickly, our doctors can afford to actually spend time on us, more effort goes into root-causing a problem, we have more treatment options, etc. It's easy to theorycraft online and look at the "on paper" metrics from highly biased studies and come to the wrong conclusions.

Rinzler89 2y ago
> your software engineers make a third of what they make here Is this topic for discussing health care systems or the SW engineering salary dick measuring Olympics? Because those are two different unrelated topics. Which country pays its software engineers the most is not some yardstick for measuring national quality of life of its average citizens, and whether SW engineers get paid a lot is totally irelevant to the people who are not working or aspiring to be SW engineers. I bet the disabled US vets, homeless people or McDonalds workers in the states also don't give a fuck that their SW engineers are the best paid in the world but would probably feel a bit cheated learning that despite living and paying taxes in the richest country in the world, their peers in poorer EU countries get much more benefits and better quality of life.