Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Do not compare EU salaries with the US

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–109 of 109 posts

Re: Do not compare EU salaries with the US

#101

Post by africanboy »

biggermike wrote: post #100
africanboy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone who has assets to draw down from is, by definition, not poor. So it is a paid program Payed by your poverty. If you end up inheriting money from a distant uncle, you have to pay back. > you can't give away your money for the sole purpose of acquiring government benefits That's understandable. And it's only necessary because the country with the highest spending per capita on healthcare cannot agree that the…

> If you end up inheriting money from a distant uncle, you have to pay back. If you inherit money from a distant uncle, your uncle is presumably no longer alive to utilize state provided long-term care and you don't have to pay anything back. You're trying to contrive a counterexample that simply isn't applicable.

What if he's not dead?

It's not contrived to receive money from your family, it is in fact the most common way on this side of the ocean.

It is contrived to help the citizens of your country in needs and then ask for the money back!

My parents don't have to worry that in their 80s they would have to pay because one of their nephews was born with some condition or preterm.

They only have think about being good grandparents.

When I was born I was put in the incubator for 16 days and have been in hospital for 24 days total. how much would that havee costed to my family?

My parents were nurses, they weren't completely poor so they surely had to pay for it, but not rich either.

Between me and my brother my mom stayed home, in payed sick leave, full salary, all expenses covered, for 36 months.

If they were in USA they'd have bankrupted or given up on having children.

My mom had a pre condition, she already had two miscarriages, I'm quite sure the insurance company would have used that notion to not pay.

Do you realise how ridiculous that system is?

What are the benefits of having such a system, when in the end USA life expectancy is only one year longer than China?

Look at this study.

If the system is so good, why USA ranks so badly?

(this is only one of many, all the international institutions, including WHO, agree that USA healthcare standards are lower than the average western standards and much worse than the highest western standards, despite how much money they pure into it)

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...

Re: Do not compare EU salaries with the US

#102

Post by kevindong »

scrose wrote: post #85
kevindong wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, this lottery [0] from early 2020 permits individuals with an income of $168,130 to qualify for the affordable unit. Affordable housing units developed during some of the late 2000s to early 2010s had very, very high income limits. Those housing programs have mostly been sunset at this point but units built under those programs retain the income bracket levels then in effect. http://web.archive.org/web/20…

Interesting, thanks for the history! I personally qualified for/lived in an affordable housing unit for a few years right after college. The income limit for a single person was 95k at the time What I find interesting about many of these units is how the net effective rent is still typically 40x annual income for people in that bracket. If I hadn’t switched jobs and gotten some significant raises in the process, much…

The rent is specifically chosen to be 30% of gross annual income which works out to be exactly that magical 40x ratio that's typically used in NYC rental qualification.

Re: Do not compare EU salaries with the US

#103

Post by tptacek »

dragonwriter wrote: post #95
marcinzm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To expand on this. The average healthcare cost in the US is $7k/year/person for the working age population. Children are an additional $3k/child/year. Since insurance companies are private businesses they will be paid $7k/year/person on average. No loopholes, no ifs, no buts. As such, no matter what your plan says or what the tradeoffs are (deductible, monthly, etc.), on average you will be paying them $7k/year/perso…

> The average healthcare cost in the US is $7k/year/person for the working age population. Children are an additional $3k/child/year. Actual US healthcare spending in 2019 was $11,582/person. https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta...

That's not the average cost per person; it's simply the total amount of health care spending, in all categories, in the US divided by its population.

Re: Do not compare EU salaries with the US

#104

Post by vinni2 »

Many comments here point out Medicaid and Medicare. What about sick pay? In most EU countries you can keep large fraction of your salary until you are able to work again. And what about parental leave? It is another benefit most Europeans enjoy. Finally vacations I get 30 days stress free vacation per year. I might be wrong but are there alternatives for these in the US?

Re: Do not compare EU salaries with the US

#105

Post by biggermike »

africanboy wrote: post #101
biggermike wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you end up inheriting money from a distant uncle, you have to pay back. If you inherit money from a distant uncle, your uncle is presumably no longer alive to utilize state provided long-term care and you don't have to pay anything back. You're trying to contrive a counterexample that simply isn't applicable.

What if he's not dead? It's not contrived to receive money from your family, it is in fact the most common way on this side of the ocean. It is contrived to help the citizens of your country in needs and then ask for the money back! My parents don't have to worry that in their 80s they would have to pay because one of their nephews was born with some condition or preterm. They only have think about being good grandpa…

> What if he's not dead?

Then you wouldn't be inheriting anything in the legal sense of the word. That's why it's a contrived scenario -- it doesn't exist in reality.

Besides, the point is moot, as Medicaid nursing home care isn't Medicaid medical care, which is what the original topic was about.

> My parents were nurses, they weren't completely poor so they surely had to pay for it, but not rich either.

The government here heavily subsidizes the healthcare plans of people near poverty (up to 4 times the poverty level), not just the poor.

Re: Do not compare EU salaries with the US

#106

Post by dragonwriter »

tptacek wrote: post #103
dragonwriter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average healthcare cost in the US is $7k/year/person for the working age population. Children are an additional $3k/child/year. Actual US healthcare spending in 2019 was $11,582/person. https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta...

That's not the average cost per person; it's simply the total amount of health care spending, in all categories, in the US divided by its population.

Which is also the arithmetic mean cost per person, by definition. Which average did you have in mind?

The median might arguably be a more useful average here, but I doubt the data necessary to even identify the median individual cost are kept.

Re: Do not compare EU salaries with the US

#108

Post by tptacek »

dragonwriter wrote: post #106
tptacek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the average cost per person; it's simply the total amount of health care spending, in all categories, in the US divided by its population.

Which is also the arithmetic mean cost per person, by definition. Which average did you have in mind? The median might arguably be a more useful average here, but I doubt the data necessary to even identify the median individual cost are kept.

The person you responded to was talking about direct-to-consumer costs; you switched figures while suggesting that their number was erroneously low. You were wrong.

Re: Do not compare EU salaries with the US

#109

Post by africanboy »

biggermike wrote: post #105
africanboy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if he's not dead? It's not contrived to receive money from your family, it is in fact the most common way on this side of the ocean. It is contrived to help the citizens of your country in needs and then ask for the money back! My parents don't have to worry that in their 80s they would have to pay because one of their nephews was born with some condition or preterm. They only have think about being good grandpa…

> What if he's not dead? Then you wouldn't be inheriting anything in the legal sense of the word. That's why it's a contrived scenario -- it doesn't exist in reality. Besides, the point is moot, as Medicaid nursing home care isn't Medicaid medical care, which is what the original topic was about. > My parents were nurses, they weren't completely poor so they surely had to pay for it, but not rich either. The governme…

> Then you wouldn't be inheriting anything in the legal sense of the word

First of all, the uncle could be Mexican or French.

Secondly, devolving one's inheritance to someone else is completely legal (at least in my country).

> The government here heavily subsidizes the healthcare plans of people near poverty

They are paying for the insurance, not for the healthcare!

I don't know why is so hard for Americans to understand the difference.

So instead of having a State run system to give the people the best healthcare possible, they use a large amount of money to pay private institutions and still have shitty health care[0], while also spending more than anybody else [1]

Isn't it the textbook definition of "idiotic"?

[0] USA healthcare ranks 37th according to WHO study that evaluated 191 countries https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf

[1] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...

Post reply on HN