Yeah this is a very common sentiment. I feel like most people in the US haven’t actually talked to someone that has experience with socialized healthcare at scale. I had a German professor that was very clear about just how much better healthcare is in the US.
I am from Germany and agree that US healthcare is very shiny. But once you get sick it’s very easy to get stuck in an extremely expensive bureaucratic nightmare between hospitals and insurances. I prefer the German system where I can go to a doctor or ride an ambulance without the fear of having to pay tons of money.
The German healthcare system was surprising to me. It was affordable, it was fairly honest, and our anecdotal experience was not as good as most experienced we’ve had in the USA.
A few examples for those wondering:
* the total cost for over a week stay was a couple hundred dollars - very affordable!
* certain painkillers banned in the USA were the first line of defense there
* getting very strong pain killers was next to impossible - I think we probably only got it because we were family members of the anesthesiologist, and he knew we needed it. And it took nearly 24 hours of agonized pain before we could finally get them
* nurses are not trained to put in IVs - we needed an MD for that. And the MD had a lot of things to do and we had to wait quite awhile even though there were many nurses around. In the USA, I think most people with the title of nurse can do that
In the US people with the title of nurse can be someone who is highly skilled and is playing an important hands-on role in major and complicated surgeries.
I think some other places around the world use the title nurse for what may be a medical assistant in the US. (No clue about Germany though)
Healthcare in the US can be higher quality, but you never know what you’re going to pay for it.
When I was starting my career, I had to go to an ER that was out of network, I checked with my insurance and they said they would cover it. They decided after all not to honor their word and charged me 10’s of thousands of dollars.
Being young and independent, this was devastating, despite having a good job, good insurance, etc.
I largely credit this with my push to move to Europe, and have never looked back.
Sometimes knowing you can get any healthcare you need without it potentially a bankrupting you is it’s own reward.
"I checked with my insurance and they said they would cover it. They decided after all not to honor their word and charged me 10’s of thousands of dollars."
That's the insanity here. You simply can't protect yourself reliably from overcharging. Hospitals and insurances do whatever they want and good luck to you fixing mistakes. I find it really hard to understand how people can be defending such a system.
As someone who has lived in the US, UK, and NL. I'll happily take the UK (pre-running it at such a budget that it fell apart) or NL systems over the US anyday.
There is no fun surprises like finding out that while your surgeon and hopsital were in-network your anaesthetist was out of network.
Eh. I did in Poland, but, admittedly, it is a poster child of how to do it so badly that people opt for now existing separate private care. It is, however, definitely a negative example of socialized health care.
