31–40 of 239 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily: if you're famous, you might have a hard time going out in public.
I think that's more a problem with being famous: the top of the Wikipedia list* as I write this is "Bernard Arnault & family", who I've never heard of and therefore couldn't spot in a lineup much less a crowd. But I did double-take when walking past Russell T Davis (or a lookalike) in Sheffield a decade and a half ago, and Richard Osman in Cambridge train station some other time. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_W…
What does the ranking look like if you compare percentiles? Naively I would assume as a non-American that if you're in the top 20% by income in the US you end up much better off than the top 20% income Brit, for example. Or is it just actually worse for everyone? It feels intuitively obvious that the average will be worse because, well, the average person is skint and the US is less socialist.
I'm sure that if you're rich enough, you have fantastic care available in the US, but from what I've seen of prices for pretty basic stuff, I'm not so convinced most of the top 20% in the US have healthcare I'd consider tolerable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's more a problem with being famous: the top of the Wikipedia list* as I write this is "Bernard Arnault & family", who I've never heard of and therefore couldn't spot in a lineup much less a crowd. But I did double-take when walking past Russell T Davis (or a lookalike) in Sheffield a decade and a half ago, and Richard Osman in Cambridge train station some other time. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_W…
That's why I said "if". Some billionaires are not well-known publicly, and then there's Elon Musk or Bill Gates.
Lately I can’t even get a doctor - both the specialist and primary care doctors are booked months in advance. And I have one of the best insurance coverages currently available. Remember how we laughed at Canadians and Brits waiting for months to see their free/cheap doctors? Well we’re at a point where we have to wait _and_ pay through the nose. And then they can’t really do anything or fuck you up even worse.
You forgot to mention what country you are talking about. That seems to be American. Difficulties to get an appointment is also common in at least some areas of the EU countries I am familiar with.
My doctors have all been good (attested to by my parents who are surgeons themselves) but the healthcare system is wonky.
One thing I didn't expect is that the Indian system where you just drag your health records around paper copy yourself is superior to US EMR systems - which doctors seem to always have trouble with.
But now I have some friends in medicine and I always have them pull my records and keep a copy myself. It's usually a fax but it's better that way. Clearly electronic interop isn't working most of the time.
What does the ranking look like if you compare percentiles? Naively I would assume as a non-American that if you're in the top 20% by income in the US you end up much better off than the top 20% income Brit, for example. Or is it just actually worse for everyone? It feels intuitively obvious that the average will be worse because, well, the average person is skint and the US is less socialist.
Lately I can’t even get a doctor - both the specialist and primary care doctors are booked months in advance. And I have one of the best insurance coverages currently available. Remember how we laughed at Canadians and Brits waiting for months to see their free/cheap doctors? Well we’re at a point where we have to wait _and_ pay through the nose. And then they can’t really do anything or fuck you up even worse.
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…
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.
What does the ranking look like if you compare percentiles? Naively I would assume as a non-American that if you're in the top 20% by income in the US you end up much better off than the top 20% income Brit, for example. Or is it just actually worse for everyone? It feels intuitively obvious that the average will be worse because, well, the average person is skint and the US is less socialist.
The US health care system is partly socialized. Health care is provided for the unemployed or low income and the employed are covered as employers are required to provide health coverage. The odd ones out are typically small business owners who don't insure themselves and choose to take on the risk of potentially large medical bills. In all cases treatment is required by law, regardless of payment.
* Hospitals must treat or stabilize regardless of payment, but only for emergencies - they just have to try to keep you from dying on the spot
* The ACA (or Medicaid) subsidizes insurance for the unemployed, if your household income for the calendar year is low enough
* Employers are required to offer coverage to their employees, provided they work more than 30 hours a week at that company and it has at least 50 full time employees (this extends to dependent children but not spouses or other dependents)
This is better than nothing, don't get me wrong, but it could be a lot better still. We have the technology.
It's unfair to judge the EU piecewise but then judge the US as a whole. Either let us compare apples to apples by judging the whole EU against the US or let us judge individual European member states against individual US states.