[noir_lord]

I talk to quite a lot of Americans online and many of them really are not aware, as they are programmers they generally earn good (by UK standards very good) money but then you start talking to them about what good health insurance for a family of four costs and suddenly things start to look different.

I think in some respects the US has coasted on it's former economic glory - I mean sure Silicon Valley is a mecca for folks like us but then you look at things outside of the those types of Nexuses and its a very different picture.

In Europe the UK is often regarded (sometimes appropriately) as US-lite but we are still an ocean away literally and figuratively from them in so many ways.

Given a lever between moving our politics closer to Nordic countries or the US I know which way I'd push it, I'll take a more equal fairer society with better outcomes for more people over a decrease in the already tiny chance to be super rich - its not really something I've ever really thought about as an end goal anyway - the increase in freedom would be nice but I can't imagine I'd still work insanely hard for that second billion, I'd probably potter about the world learning about history and art and working on open source.

[allthecybers]

> I think in some respects the US has coasted on it's former economic glory - I mean sure Silicon Valley is a mecca for folks like us but then you look at things outside of the those types of Nexuses and its a very different picture.

This is not intended as a political statement or a commentary on current politics. But its often said that Americans vote against their own interests and I think this is particularly true in issues surrounding the social safety net, like universal healthcare, parental leave and other things that some other first-world countries have already figured out.

Unfortunately, this puts us at an ever growing disadvantage with the rest of the world as the only people who can attain these benefits in the US are FAANG, some fortune 500 and other megacorp employees. This also exacerbates inequality between the FAANGs and FAANGnots. (horrible pun, I know)

[flyinglizard]

Isn’t health insurance, in the case of tech workers at least, usually covered by the employer?

[axaxs]

Typically, only partially. I don't even remember what I pay now, but it's more than a couple hundred per month. And that still has out of pocket costs, deductibles, etc. It's a giant scam.

[magduf]

It's generally not that much money if you're single. Where it's really awful is when you have a family with kids; even with employer-based insurance, the out-of-pocket costs are very, very high. The employer will cover a lot of your insurance cost if you're single, but not so much for the rest of your family.

The US is a good place to make a lot of money if you're a single tech worker and can live cheaply and save, but it's not a good place to raise a family at all.

[lostmsu]

MS-provided insurance used to have $3500 deductible per family, which is very little in terms of salary percentage.