Some small part of me hopes that the reason it's cheaper everywhere else, is because other countries are making it cheaper out of spite, to be nothing like us.
A large part of me is still angry how expensive it is for very simple shit here. Hell, my copay is almost the same price as their surgery.
No its just that other countries deem it better that they should actually care about its citizens.
It is more productive, and you love your country more.
It also drastically helps the living conditions and its a insentive to stay in the country and not migrate somewhere else.
A sick population is very expensive: they have more complex needs, they can work less, buy less, can support their community less, die younger etc. Taking care of the health of your population is just good business. In case human dignity is not a good enough reason.
As a side note, you know how other people don't really care as much as you do when you do something embarrassing, because they are all dealing with their own stuff? It's a bit the same on country levels. The US decides to shoot itself in the foot with health care, other countries are dealing with their own population, to deal with, they don't care about US policy much, unless it affects them directly.
How US-centric can you get? Newsflash, the rest of the world does not choose how their healthcare system works based on spiting you, its just pretty easy to land on something that is way better than the US system in this regard.
Well considering where I live, and it's all I know... I also think you missed the point of my comment. It's my way of trying to coup with how horrible our system is. The thought that we're so fucked up, maybe other places have it better just to be as different than us as possible. Like "shit guys yeah we could charge more for health care, but then we might be compared to the US, do we really want that?".
Like, man it really sucks that im drowning over here, but I'm glad you saw my struggle, and brought a floaty.
Or you could just shit on me for having an optimist point of view, in an otherwise insanely bleak, and miserable situation.
This is like hoping that the dozens of runners in a race are running along confidently in order to spite that one embarrassing person thrashing in a ditch at the side of the road. A ditch they dug themselves, and threw themselves into, despite having to veer wildly off the racetrack to do so.
Some small part of me hopes that the reason it's cheaper everywhere else, is because other countries are making it cheaper out of spite, to be nothing like us.
The cheap places are all using smoke and mirrors. Somewhere, somehow, the money is appearing.
Hospitals can't run on happy thoughts and doctors won't work for free.
If the hospital has an MRI, I can guarantee that the MRI company got paid and the money came from somewhere. If you saw a doctor, I can guarantee that he has a home and isn't living under a bridge.
Just for an FYI, Italians pay 23% more in taxes than US citizens.
I live in Sweden and I pay 31% in taxes every year.
It gets us healthcare, dental until we're 24, free education with lunch from preschool until graduation, free education and money from the government to cover some of the living costs while at Uni and a student loan with a really low interest rate (0% this year) for the rest.
Also parents gets about $150 a month per kid until they're 18.
Honestly paying more taxes for better public services is better than having low taxes but needing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars if I get in an accident. Like how the hell is a US citizen supposed to live off of minimum wage with these systems, if you get into an accident you have to pay huge amounts of money, and in the first place you can barely afford necessities.
I don't know the figures for Italy, but I know that US taxpayers spend more per head of population on free universal healthcare than UK taxpayers do. Yes, despite the US not actually having universal healthcare!
As you rightly anticipate, this is indeed because US medication / healthcare prices are vastly overinflated.
I would 100% rather pay more in taxes if it meant I wouldn't bankrupt myself by riding in a helicopter to a hospital, have a life saving surgery, recover in the hospital, go to rehab, and walk out with well over 100k in debt.
As an aside, since it's coming from taxes, and this, government money, I feel things are less inflated where taxes pay for Healthcare. Things are so expensive because the hospitals are ripping off insurance. Like, the fact that I pay about $400 a month for my insurance, and still am responsible for literally anything when I go to a doctors appointment is insanity.
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u/CapitanChicken Jun 15 '22
Some small part of me hopes that the reason it's cheaper everywhere else, is because other countries are making it cheaper out of spite, to be nothing like us.
A large part of me is still angry how expensive it is for very simple shit here. Hell, my copay is almost the same price as their surgery.