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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. Bo

by 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.
- ben_w 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? The US federal taxes are not a constant dollar amount. Someone who earns $60k pays $5,020, someone who earns $150k pays $24,734, from the first tax calculator I found. Same idea in the UK. > 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. False. The average person in the UK spends about half as many hours on health as the average person in the USA. What you're comparing now isn't just the government taxation supported stuff, so you also have to include the insurance and out-of-pocket costs, which then brings the USA to a nationwide average of $15,474/person, i.e. 18% of GDP, compared to the UK's (in USD terms) $5493/capita or 8.9% GDP: https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/historical https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo... vs https://healthsystemsfacts.org/uk-consumer-costs/ https://healthsystemsfacts.org/uk-consumer-costs/ > 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. I know all of that. What's your argument here? Mine is that the NHS costs roughly the same as Americans spend on just this alone, and the UK doesn't then need other spending on top. > Having a lower cost per person is actually not a good thing. It's bad, actually. It means worse facilities, fewer staff, worse equipment. False: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=line&time=1918..latest&country=GBR~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=line&...
  - hparadiz 5mo ago
    My argument is our basic NHS level care costs us less labor to reach and that the rest of that spend is a luxury on nicer facilities, equipment, rooms, food, nurses and other personal which we are happy to spend because it's a luxury we have that only the rich in the UK can afford while in the US at least the middle class can reach that level. We also classify these costs as healthcare when you might classify them in a different way as luxury add ons.

by ben_w 5mo ago

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.

ben_w 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? The US federal taxes are not a constant dollar amount. Someone who earns $60k pays $5,020, someone who earns $150k pays $24,734, from the first tax calculator I found. Same idea in the UK. > 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. False. The average person in the UK spends about half as many hours on health as the average person in the USA. What you're comparing now isn't just the government taxation supported stuff, so you also have to include the insurance and out-of-pocket costs, which then brings the USA to a nationwide average of $15,474/person, i.e. 18% of GDP, compared to the UK's (in USD terms) $5493/capita or 8.9% GDP: https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/historical https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo... vs https://healthsystemsfacts.org/uk-consumer-costs/ https://healthsystemsfacts.org/uk-consumer-costs/ > 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. I know all of that. What's your argument here? Mine is that the NHS costs roughly the same as Americans spend on just this alone, and the UK doesn't then need other spending on top. > Having a lower cost per person is actually not a good thing. It's bad, actually. It means worse facilities, fewer staff, worse equipment. False: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=line&time=1918..latest&country=GBR~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=line&...
- hparadiz 5mo ago
  My argument is our basic NHS level care costs us less labor to reach and that the rest of that spend is a luxury on nicer facilities, equipment, rooms, food, nurses and other personal which we are happy to spend because it's a luxury we have that only the rich in the UK can afford while in the US at least the middle class can reach that level. We also classify these costs as healthcare when you might classify them in a different way as luxury add ons.