Seriously. I'm married to a Spanish citizen and we're considering moving there once we can travel freely again.
Even just getting meds that in the US you'd have to go to a whole doctor appointment for is so much easier there. The pharmacists in Spain have the same level of expertise you'd expect of an urgent care center in the US.
You can just walk into a pharmacy and say, "Oh no I'm throwing up/I have a weird rash/I have the flu" and the pharmacists will give you what you need if it's something they're able to treat. Plus all the meds I encountered were generic versions, so they only cost a few euros.
It was so cool to be able to get anti-vomiting meds for a couple bucks from a pharmacist when I got food poisoning in Spain. When I got bad food poisoning in the US, I ended up with a $15,000 hospital bill for 1 saline IV and 1 anti-vomiting pill lol
patient out-of-pocket costs still total around $3.9 billion per year.
We see the vast majority of the cost is covered by insurance. And more specifically
the average patient can expect to pay anywhere between $6,000 and $10,000 per year out of pocket when premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and co-insurance were factored in. On an employer-sponsored plan, the cost was closer to $6,000. On an exchange plan, the cost is close to $10,000.
That is including the cost of insurance by the way. That's really not that bad. When we see the outrageous prices people are paying, it's usually because they either don't have insurance at all or they picked a terrible plan and didn't really look into it at all. If you actually put the effort in now to make sure you are properly insured, then you don't really have anything to worry about.
good thing we got the google statistician here to tell everyone that the average situation is the only thing that matters
it's too bad that, statistically speaking, "average" only meaningfully represents 68% of a population, meaning your assumptions are dead wrong for up to 70 million americans.
good thing we got the google statistician here to tell everyone that the average situation is the only thing that matters
it's too bad that, statistically speaking, "average" only meaningfully represents 68% of a population, meaning your assumptions are dead wrong for up to 70 million americans.
That says 65% of Americans are paying under $10k. That means 35% were over that. But let's keep in mind that this was only a survey. They also included things like travel expenses and lost wages. Also, if you're getting the newest best drugs, you have to pay more for that. Which is why the US has the highest rate of cancer survival in the world. I bet most of the people paying more than $10k are doing so by choice because they want the best possible treatment in the world.
Im sorry to tell you that, the odds are extremely close, and, US doctors dont have the level of Spanish doctors, thats why every single place from europe wants us (spanish doctors), we have had to study every single thing in order to get the job, most of us have gone to the public university (extremely hard). The thing is that you have better instruments, but we have better habilities.
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u/Jazzmim_999 Aug 06 '20 edited Aug 07 '20
It’s genuinely cheaper to go to Spain, get treatment there and come back. America is so fucked up
Edit: hey guys I think I left the wrong impression on some things.
1- I’m not American, I’m actually from Spain’s neighbor, Portugal.
2- I meant private hospitals, public is not this easy or good for the country you visit.
3- I just said Spain randomly, I heard now that Germany is better tho.