5 ms·

Yea cause we throw more money at it. Our facilities are far superior. In California where I live though folks with little money get very subsidized healthcare t

Yea cause we throw more money at it. Our facilities are far superior. In California where I live though folks with little money get very subsidized healthcare that is cheaper than NHS taxes.

grey-area 5mo ago
Outcomes are worse in the US, perhaps you should reevaluate your assumptions.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
California may well be an outlier state in this and various other aspects.
- hparadiz 5mo ago
  You should check out the stats broken down by ethnicity and household wealth. That gives you a clearer picture of what a typical person on HN actually experiences.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - microtonal 5mo ago
    The idea of having healthcare, a social safety net, etc. is that everyone is off well. Not the top-5% of the population that you are filtering for. It seems that you only care about how well you and your bubble are off and not others. As the young kids say it - sad.
    - hparadiz 5mo ago
      I live in California. We already have those things. What are you even talking about?
ben_w 5mo ago
You seem to be saying two opposite things here, that the US is better because you spend more money on it, and yet also that you don't spend more money on it. Both can't be true, but both can be wrong. > Our facilities are far superior. Then why is US life expectancy worse? > In California where I live though folks with little money get very subsidized healthcare that is cheaper than NHS taxes. Unless "very subsidized" means "by 100%", the UK's "folks with little money", or indeed significantly more than national average income, are still doing better. NHS care for citizens is zero upfront cost, except for dentistry and prescriptions which total to 1% of the UK's health costs. The claim about taxes is just plain false, when considered over the whole USA and not cherrypicking the most favourable states within it: the US federal spending on Medicare + Medicaid is around $4,352/person, state-level spending added around $1,105/person on top of that for a total of around $5,457/person, and remember this is before personal insurance and co-pay costs which are on top of that: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2024_federal_budget.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2024_federal_budge... In comparison, the NHS spent around £3,482/person, at current exchange rates $4,643.66/person: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn00724/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn00...
- hparadiz 5mo ago
  If my salary is 150k and I spend 5k that's 3.3%. If my salary is 60k that same 5k is 8.3%. So when I am talking about "cost" I mean hours of labor. It costs Americans fewer hours of labor to pay for their healthcare. This is true across all socioeconomic classes. The same Medicare + Medicaid you cite is actually our tax payer funded subsidized healthcare for folks that have to use tax payer funded socialized healthcare and are basically at the mercy of what our healthcare system will provide them state by state but generally it is federal law that an ER has to take care of you if it's an immediate life threatening problem. So what you are citing is actually our tax payer funded socialized healthcare which is funded differently state by state and a lot of people won't even use because it's basically the last resort. Most Americans are subsidizing that healthcare. As a percentage of my paycheck what you cited as Medicare/Medicaid is again very low. State taxes are basically 2-3% and in some cases $0 and/or funded through real estate taxes rather than income tax. This is actually one of the arguments for American universal healthcare. We can bridge the final gap of uninsured with about 1-2% more in taxes. It would still be much less than what most countries pay by a substantial amount while still maintaining 90% of the level of care. Having a lower cost per person is actually not a good thing. It's bad, actually. It means worse facilities, fewer staff, worse equipment. Do not cite flat numbers as some sort of gotcha. Obviously we spend more money on our own healthcare. We have more of it with fewer hours of labor.

Yea cause we throw more money at it. Our facilities are far superior. In California where I live though folks with little money get very subsidized healthcare that is cheaper than NHS taxes.

grey-area 5mo ago

Outcomes are worse in the US, perhaps you should reevaluate your assumptions.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

BLKNSLVR 5mo ago

California may well be an outlier state in this and various other aspects.

hparadiz 5mo ago
You should check out the stats broken down by ethnicity and household wealth. That gives you a clearer picture of what a typical person on HN actually experiences.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- microtonal 5mo ago
  The idea of having healthcare, a social safety net, etc. is that everyone is off well. Not the top-5% of the population that you are filtering for. It seems that you only care about how well you and your bubble are off and not others. As the young kids say it - sad.
  - hparadiz 5mo ago
    I live in California. We already have those things. What are you even talking about?

ben_w 5mo ago

You seem to be saying two opposite things here, that the US is better because you spend more money on it, and yet also that you don't spend more money on it. Both can't be true, but both can be wrong. > Our facilities are far superior. Then why is US life expectancy worse? > In California where I live though folks with little money get very subsidized healthcare that is cheaper than NHS taxes. Unless "very subsidized" means "by 100%", the UK's "folks with little money", or indeed significantly more than national average income, are still doing better. NHS care for citizens is zero upfront cost, except for dentistry and prescriptions which total to 1% of the UK's health costs. The claim about taxes is just plain false, when considered over the whole USA and not cherrypicking the most favourable states within it: the US federal spending on Medicare + Medicaid is around $4,352/person, state-level spending added around $1,105/person on top of that for a total of around $5,457/person, and remember this is before personal insurance and co-pay costs which are on top of that: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2024_federal_budget.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2024_federal_budge... In comparison, the NHS spent around £3,482/person, at current exchange rates $4,643.66/person: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn00724/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn00...

hparadiz 5mo ago
If my salary is 150k and I spend 5k that's 3.3%. If my salary is 60k that same 5k is 8.3%. So when I am talking about "cost" I mean hours of labor. It costs Americans fewer hours of labor to pay for their healthcare. This is true across all socioeconomic classes. The same Medicare + Medicaid you cite is actually our tax payer funded subsidized healthcare for folks that have to use tax payer funded socialized healthcare and are basically at the mercy of what our healthcare system will provide them state by state but generally it is federal law that an ER has to take care of you if it's an immediate life threatening problem. So what you are citing is actually our tax payer funded socialized healthcare which is funded differently state by state and a lot of people won't even use because it's basically the last resort. Most Americans are subsidizing that healthcare. As a percentage of my paycheck what you cited as Medicare/Medicaid is again very low. State taxes are basically 2-3% and in some cases $0 and/or funded through real estate taxes rather than income tax. This is actually one of the arguments for American universal healthcare. We can bridge the final gap of uninsured with about 1-2% more in taxes. It would still be much less than what most countries pay by a substantial amount while still maintaining 90% of the level of care. Having a lower cost per person is actually not a good thing. It's bad, actually. It means worse facilities, fewer staff, worse equipment. Do not cite flat numbers as some sort of gotcha. Obviously we spend more money on our own healthcare. We have more of it with fewer hours of labor.