[pedrosorio]

> Not to mention we get free health care

The (many) issues with US health care do not affect upper/middle class professionals.

From a "patient perspective", as long as you are employed as a software engineer in SV, health care is not a concern at all (insurance is covered by the employer). If anything, it is superior to anything I experienced in Europe.

[neffy]

I've experienced American healthcare and European healthcare. I'll take European any day of the week, over the Silicon valley version (and seriously if that's the best, god help the rest. I'm actually lucky I survived the US system.)

The issue in America is essentially that the system is paid by piecework. So the entire system optimises for the number of tests/procedures/operations etc. that can be performed. And that might not be so bad in and of itself, if 21st century medicine was reliable. But it's not, and the sad truth of the US system is that many of the (very expensive) procedures it performs have worst outcomes than leaving the patient alone.

[AndriyKunitsyn]

That's interesting, because I had a different experience. What Europe are you talking about here?

In the Netherlands, a patient should not expect from a doctor to conduct any tests at all. I had no experience with the Dutch healthcare myself, but I've heard horrendous stories about it, for example how Irish expat went to a doctor with a problem of pain while swallowing, received nothing more than an advice "well, swallow less, then" (like in a bad joke about doctors), went home to Ireland a got diagnosed with a throat cancer there.

[w1nst0nsm1th]

Except when you really need an efficient health insurrance system, like cancer level efficiency. At least it's what I learnd from following US politics these last 3 years on reddit.

[cannonedhamster]

I mean, I have cancer and my health insurance in the US is about as good as can be expected, which unfortunately means almost nothing because we're terrible at cancer we can't cut out of the body. If I didn't have this healthcare I'd probably be dead already and leaving a mountain of debt for my family. The costs to my insurance company are insane for treatment. I'm easily costing over 100k/mo for basic treatment.

[selectodude]

Having a lot of money is really the sole area where US health care actually is the best in the world. Efficiency is somebody else’s problem.

[bsanr2]

Though the costs are invisible to you, our model raises prices and essentially gentrifies care, making it more difficult for those lower on the ladder to afford care (bringing along the associated public health issues) and robbing other priorities (like medical research) of cash.