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US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

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Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#111

Post by negrit »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #107
negrit wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is no such thing as free healthcare, someone has to pay for it...

Do you think it is likely that the person you're replying to doesn't know this or are they simply calling attention to the fact that Medicaid recipients receive care that they themselves do not pay for? Is the statement in some way unclear? Care to suggest a rephrasing?

I'm fairly confident that the person I'm replying to knows this.

A better phrasing would be "subsidized healthcare".

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#112

Post by persephonee »

anxrn wrote: post #2

I suspect using the median net assets instead of the average would lead to vastly different results.

The distribution of wealth is as unequal, as for a hundred years. A new guilded age has arrived. Average distribution of 'placewealthorincomemeasurehere' is irrelevant.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#113

Post by on_and_off »

brownbat wrote: post #71

> But debts in the Alpine country are far higher than in the US... Debts make this comparison difficult to make meaningful. A few cases: - Minimum wage earner barely scrapes by but does not seek any credit. - Someone in a high cost of living area takes out a mortgage. - A young neurosurgeon with fresh educational debt takes on a very high paying job. - A billionaire borrows to finance a major real estate project The…

>I don't know how we disentangle all those when trying to measure or compare human welfare.

One number I like to use is the IHDI : https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_countries_by_inequality-...

There can be an endless debate on the methodology of course and I don't think this number should be taken as an absolute truth.

It does give a more holistic picture though and takes many more factors into account.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#114

Post by rayiner »

cadlin wrote: post #106
rayiner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also consistent with the pattern. 75% of Americans have either employer paid insurance or Medicare. For those people, premiums and out of pocket costs are on average less than the extra taxes they’d pay in Europe for health insurance: https://www.assembly.ca.gov/sites/assembly.ca.gov/files/Arch... (page 18, showing 5.2% of household income spent on premiums and out of pocket costs). (Note that France doesn’t h…

France pays less for healthcare than the US and gets more. A lot more. To pick a statistic, their maternal mortality rate is 1/3 of the US. Because the US is a wealthier country overall it can waste more money and receive worse results. That isn't an argument in favor the US healthcare system. Also, do you realize that the graph you are citing isn't tracking the cost of US healthcare to a US citizen, it is literally…

The point is that the cost of healthcare doesn’t eat up the income difference between the typical American family and typical European family.

Note also that trying to compare health outcomes between countries is extremely difficult. Asians in the US live longer than Asians in countries with excellent healthcare systems like Japan.[1] Puerto Rico has a similar life expectancy to Denmark or Germany, even though if it were a US state it would be the poorest.

Maternal mortality rate varies by a factor of 10 between US states. The maternal mortality rate in West Virginia is only a somewhat higher than Germany and the UK, while the rate in New York is twice as high and New Jersey is four times higher. Massachusetts and California are lower than France.

[1] Asian American men live longer than white women.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#115

Post by wolco »

negrit wrote: post #89
gnopgnip wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly a quarter of US residents are on medicaid, and have free healthcare. Medical bankruptcy was a big problem, but under the ACA the yearly out of pocket max has all but eliminated these.

there is no such thing as free healthcare, someone has to pay for it...

I wonder if we get to the point where you are the product.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#117

Post by username90 »

hartator wrote: post #8
anxrn wrote: post #2

I suspect using the median net assets instead of the average would lead to vastly different results.

Actually the 20% poorest in the US has it better than the average EU middle class. Ref: https://www.google.com/amp/s/fee.org/articles/the-poorest-20...

The world bank says that we shouldn't compare consumption since it is calculated differently in different countries: "Because of the diversity of methods and instruments used by the surveys, comparability across countries is limited."

http://datatopics.worldbank.org/consumption/detail

I wouldn't be surprised if the American value was grossly inflated by things like expensive healthcare and education, while the study in for example Sweden possibly didn't even count free healthcare visits, free college education, free school meals for everyone, free public transit for kids or free kindergarten as household consumption.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#118

Post by jcheng »

brownbat wrote: post #71

> But debts in the Alpine country are far higher than in the US... Debts make this comparison difficult to make meaningful. A few cases: - Minimum wage earner barely scrapes by but does not seek any credit. - Someone in a high cost of living area takes out a mortgage. - A young neurosurgeon with fresh educational debt takes on a very high paying job. - A billionaire borrows to finance a major real estate project The…

When you take out a loan, it doesn't decrease your net worth, right? If I'm worth $X, then I take out a $1MM loan, at that moment I'm still worth approximately $X (because the $1MM the bank gave me and $1MM I owe the bank cancel each other out).

So I'd rank them as:

- Billionaire

- Home owner

- Minimum wage earner

- Neurosurgeon

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#119

Post by adev_ »

rayiner wrote: post #82
Cyph0n wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get from "slower internet" to "there is a pattern"? If you scroll two comments up, you'll see the most crucial difference: free healthcare. Healthcare-related expenses can bankrupt an entire family in the US, even with great health insurance... Then there is free education, but let's leave that aside for now.

That’s also consistent with the pattern. 75% of Americans have either employer paid insurance or Medicare. For those people, premiums and out of pocket costs are on average less than the extra taxes they’d pay in Europe for health insurance: https://www.assembly.ca.gov/sites/assembly.ca.gov/files/Arch... (page 18, showing 5.2% of household income spent on premiums and out of pocket costs). (Note that France doesn’t h…

> Over a career, the value of tuition free college for the average American comes nowhere near the extra taxes and lower income they’d have in France

That's so bullshit.

What matter is of course not the difference between tuitions fees than taxes.

What's matter is that everybody, even the ones that can't afford the tuitions fees can access university. Which you can in France, which you can not in Europe.

I am the living example of that. I come from a family what would never have been able to afford me US schools tuitions fees. And still I am engineer, thanks to the European systems.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#120

Post by tmb »

pvaldes wrote: post #104
rayiner wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans could live in a city where they walk, cycle, or ride a tram to work. For the most part, they don’t want to. They used to have such cities, but they ripped up the tram lines and put in freeways. (Part of that is because most of the US is quite unpleasant to walk or cycle in from a weather point of view. The average high in Amsterdam, a famous cycling city, tops out at 72 degrees. In Atlanta, it’s 80+ from Ma…

Napoleon had the same problem with his soldiers, and solved it with lots of sycamores. Atlanta could put some temporary structures to give shadow also.

Napoleon never set foot within a thousand kilometers of a similar climate, the closest he came was in exile.

The humidity is the main attraction to the show and cares little for shade, peachtree, sycamore or otherwise.

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