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Reading these articles is always mind boggling as a non American. I just checked what my private health insurance costs me here in NZ: $390 a year. This plan

Reading these articles is always mind boggling as a non American. I just checked what my private health insurance costs me here in NZ: $390 a year. This plan includes 80% rebates for pretty much anything done privately, plus a number of other private elective procedures fully covered and reimbursements on minor stuff like Physio, gp visits etc. if I doubled this I'd get stuff fully covered and likely get optical and dental too. Obviously this is cheap because its just augmenting the public system, but I probably don't pay much more tax than you guys. The difference is just crazy to me.

brazzy 13y ago
> Obviously this is cheap because its just augmenting the public system I.e. it's not comparable at all without knowing how much the "public system" costs. A more comparable data point: my German "free" (public) health care costs almost €6000 per year, of which €3200 is paid by me and the rest by my employer. There are co-payments, but very low (a maximum of €10 for drugs and per day of hospital stays).
- phaemon 13y ago
  Yours isn't comparable either since you pay that much because you're highly paid. If you earned less, you'd pay less. Also, the US has a "public system" too which you need to account for. It costs more (per-capita) than the UK's NHS costs.
  - brazzy 13y ago
    > Yours isn't comparable either since you pay that much because you're highly paid. And yet, it's cheap compared to plans in the USA, given that there is no such thing as a "deductible". And the premium doesn't rise with age, or any existing conditions.
  - digikata 13y ago
    And before you compare per-capita costs of the piecemeal US public system to those of the entire UK NHS system. The limited public system in the US is typically caring for a patient in a older demographic (medicare), and some portion of people on disability, and war vets (if you include the VA). All of which might be expected to carry a higher need for medical care then the entire UK demographic. Essentially, it pulls a higher cost slice of patients in the US off the private healthcare systems books - and even at that comparisons that I've looked at seem to point to the private system being some multiple of 50-300% more expensive than public health system.
    - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
      The US spending on Medicare/Medicaid is roughly $2500 for each person in the US and only provides coverage to a small fraction of those people. The NHS spends roughly $2900 per person. So, clearly either the private or public healthcare, possibly both, in the US is run very inefficiently.
      - phaemon 13y ago
        The latest figures I could find from the OECD on public spending gave (in US$ PPP): United Kingdom: 2857.3 United States: 3966.7 Where did you get your numbers from? If they're more accurate, I'm happy to go with them.
        TheCoelacanth 13y ago
        They are simply the total spending for each program divided by the total number of residents in the respective country. The US number only includes Medicare and Medicaid, so the discrepancy is probably because of additional public spending that isn't part of those programs. Either way it looks really bad for the US, since its public spending only covers a small fraction of people.

brazzy 13y ago

> Obviously this is cheap because its just augmenting the public system I.e. it's not comparable at all without knowing how much the "public system" costs. A more comparable data point: my German "free" (public) health care costs almost €6000 per year, of which €3200 is paid by me and the rest by my employer. There are co-payments, but very low (a maximum of €10 for drugs and per day of hospital stays).

phaemon 13y ago
Yours isn't comparable either since you pay that much because you're highly paid. If you earned less, you'd pay less. Also, the US has a "public system" too which you need to account for. It costs more (per-capita) than the UK's NHS costs.
- brazzy 13y ago
  > Yours isn't comparable either since you pay that much because you're highly paid. And yet, it's cheap compared to plans in the USA, given that there is no such thing as a "deductible". And the premium doesn't rise with age, or any existing conditions.
- digikata 13y ago
  And before you compare per-capita costs of the piecemeal US public system to those of the entire UK NHS system. The limited public system in the US is typically caring for a patient in a older demographic (medicare), and some portion of people on disability, and war vets (if you include the VA). All of which might be expected to carry a higher need for medical care then the entire UK demographic. Essentially, it pulls a higher cost slice of patients in the US off the private healthcare systems books - and even at that comparisons that I've looked at seem to point to the private system being some multiple of 50-300% more expensive than public health system.
  - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
    The US spending on Medicare/Medicaid is roughly $2500 for each person in the US and only provides coverage to a small fraction of those people. The NHS spends roughly $2900 per person. So, clearly either the private or public healthcare, possibly both, in the US is run very inefficiently.
    - phaemon 13y ago
      The latest figures I could find from the OECD on public spending gave (in US$ PPP): United Kingdom: 2857.3 United States: 3966.7 Where did you get your numbers from? If they're more accurate, I'm happy to go with them.
      - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
        They are simply the total spending for each program divided by the total number of residents in the respective country. The US number only includes Medicare and Medicaid, so the discrepancy is probably because of additional public spending that isn't part of those programs. Either way it looks really bad for the US, since its public spending only covers a small fraction of people.