You'll get ruined in US if you get cancer in your close family despite 'paying for healthcare' all your life.
In my uncharitable opinion US is good for earning money as a young, highly educated person and for nothing else.
So go there when you are around 25, work your ass off at whoever pays the most for your skillset, spend as little as possible and bail before 35. Later you're screwed. You'll still make more and more there but the money is going to be useless.
>You'll get ruined in US if you get cancer in your close family despite 'paying for healthcare' all your life.
Not really if you have insurance which as a software engineer you would have. Might hit your $10k out of pocket maximum but you salary will easily cover that.
edit: When my dad got cancer his insurance actually PAID him a cash payout for every treatment on top of paying the medical costs. He works at a non profit.
The person in the Twitter thread notes how her minimum wage mother had cancer. I think it is highly unlikely that someone working at a minimum wage job would be covered for that by their insurance (I may be wrong)
The comment I replied to made broad statements and based on the second sentence was talking about anyone with a cancer risk and not just those making low income. I don't disagree with your statement about costs to those lacking decent insurance, I merely disagree with creating broad generalizations unfounded in reality.
The US is really bad for the lower middle class in terms of social support. The poor can get passable benefits if they know how to apply but the middle class doesn't get that. As a note, there's other social issues with being poor in the US so I wouldn't recommend that either.
That's why we spent a bunch of money creating the ACA. If I was a single person here in Maryland making $24,000 per year, I could get a low-deductible health plan for $115/month (and a high-deductible one for a fraction of that).
That's 5.75% of gross income, which is lower than the health-insurance tax a lower middle class person would pay in most European countries.
> In a case study, a patient with lymphoma paid out-of-pocket healthcare costs from $6,446 in a large employer-sponsored health plan to $12,931 in a health plan on the individual health insurance market. These were all Affordable Care Act (ACA)-compliant plans.
Total out of pocket costs for cancer were $5.6 billion in 2018, with 1.8 million cases. That's about $3,100 out of pocket per diagnosis on average.
Over a career, you'll pay way more in additional taxes in Europe than whatever you'll save in out of pocket costs in the U.S. if you get cancer.
There is no need for a short-term limited duration plan under the ACA, because losing your job is a qualifying event that allows you to enroll in the ACA exchange or Medicaid (depending on our financial situation) and that can't be denied due to pre-existing conditions.
We've had the ACA for a decade now, you can't just pretend it never happened.
You have an incredibly inaccurate take on the US healthcare system. I live here and I'm in my late 30s with a family. My wife is a cancer survivor. My oldest son was born 3 months premature. and yet I'm not penniless and broke because my health insurance paid for everything.
I'm not saying it's an ideal system and doesn't have major flaws but if you are a software engineer the scenario you are describing just isn't a thing. I'm sure it feels a lot better to tell yourself that when you realize you're being paid a quarter what you could be on the other side of the Atlantic.
> I'm not saying it's an ideal system and doesn't have major flaws but if you are a software engineer the scenario you are describing just isn't a thing. I'm sure it feels a lot better to tell yourself that when you realize you're being paid a quarter what you could be on the other side of the Atlantic.
Most people saying this stuff have never had to actually use the U.S. safety net. There's a lot of stuff we could fix: making medicaid enrollment automatic, extending unemployment benefits, etc. But pretending all these programs don't exist is crazy.
> but if you are a software engineer the scenario you are describing just isn't a thing
Note that the author of the original tweet was not afraid of her own financial situation but doesn’t want live in a system where _anyone_ has to fear going broke over medical expenses.
Per the author's twit, without the higher taxes etc. they would not have been able to afford becoming a software engineer without this welfare setup.
Also, yes you save much more, but when your mother has cancer and dad is disabled(As the author explains), realistically much more than what you save ends up being spent to take care of them and paying their medical bills.
I have to say, she might be wrong about that. The US is different, sometimes worse, but people have adapted.
In the US, she would've been able to buy a laptop for dirt cheap or get it from some charity or just someone looking to get rid of it for free. I myself got my first laptops and smartphones from the US, it was cheaper than buying locally, believe it or not.
Most, if not all MOOCs are from the US. Tons of blogs, content, documentation in English, written by Americans. Free for all, just learn and show your skills.
But yes, if there's an unforeseen medical emergency, you could go bankrupt in the US, while you'd be taken care of for free (or nearly free) in Europe.
As someone who spent the first half of their life in poverty, this is not an accurate characterization of that situation in the US. Becoming a software engineer in the US is available to just about anyone, basically the cost of a cheap computer that sometimes literally rounds to "free" and some time. That is how I became a software engineer while working long hours at low-skill jobs. I eventually worked at FAANG and earned (much more than) $250k. This isn't a unique story; one of the under-rated aspects of living in the US is that this is realistically possible and many people do it. Low salaries for engineers don't help anyone except the company owners.
Poor people generally don't pay for healthcare in the US for the most part. I have multiple family members that received (literally) state-of-the-art cancer treatment at top hospitals at no cost to themselves. The hospitals don't even try to collect anything. That's pretty normal in the US. Having to pay expensive medical bills is something that happens to the middle class, not the poor.
Thanks for sharing this. She also mentions not affording university but that is besides the point.
I think there are two issue, Low gross salaries in EU(which I agree with you), and high taxes in the EU(Which the twitt justifies and I agree).
For the first issue, I am all for better and more fair wages in EU, but that is a completely different topic with different dynamics.
Just one question as I am genuinely curious, when poor people get hospitalized or can not work and have to rest at home, do they receive any payment due to their job? Do they get terminated? Do they receive a social payment of sorts? Even if they don't pay the medical bills, can they afford to get by without family/community support?
For more context see my other reply about a friend having stomach issues.
They'd realistically have Medicaid in the US which doesn't have high out of pocket costs. Probably social security payments for disability and various other government programs. Some programs would even pay the mother (or a relative) to stay home and help their disabled spouse. Community college is fairly inexpensive in the US so there's that as well.
I know someone that immigrated to EU from middle east, after ~1 year developed a severe life threatening stomach/liver illness(can not recall the details), went through multiple operations, after 1.5-2 years away from work but getting most of his salary due to welfare got better and got back to work. He is very young and I suspect you could have anything close to this in US. Let alone immigrants, even citizens can not afford to do this.
I have never lived in the US and this all from online media, reading and talking to various ex/current US citizens/residents colleagues, so I might be wrong still.
As someone who has lived in various parts of the US and knows people across the economic spectrum I only know of one person who has had major issues with medical coverage in the US. Various complaining about doctors and treatments and so on but that's the case in all countries.
edit: And my comment was more to point out that anecdotes make poor facts.
I hope that advocates of purchasing power parity comparisons are prepared to factor in implicitly consumed but not easily purchasable goods. Otherwise, they would miss out on many of the things that truly matter in life.
For example, in the EU, my middle class neighbors’ children safely bike and ride the train to and from their excellent publicly funded schools, after school activities, and friends’ houses requiring little to no adult supervision while in transit.* What do private schooling, chauffeurs, and security personnel cost in the US, anyway?
*Of course, COVID does interfere somewhat with this, but this is true worldwide.
Did you read the Twitter thread? The person writing the Twitter thread clearly outlines their feelings about the need to contribute to the social safety net.
> I wanna give back, im okay with that
> I don't wanna make 250k while most people work three jobs
Nobody is stopping one from voluntarily donating to a non-profit or for-profit organization, or being involved in one for that matter.
In Europe, most people don't work 3 jobs because either it's not legal to do so or those jobs don't exist because of debilitating regulations... or at some point, making more isn't really worth it because of how high the taxes go up.
The financial efficiency of a well managed charitable organisation is atrocious compared to state programs. This is largely due to state programs having the capability to actually solve problems.
Eliminating working three jobs is desirable, it isnt debilitating to prevent exploitation of workers, its enabling. Setting a minimum wage and maximum working hours creates a minimum quality of life.
For most people this is desirable. As far as I can see you'd either have to be a sadist, or incredibly obsessed with how well off you are vs others to not want this.
The occasional donation to a non-profit might help people subsist, but it doesn't build a better society with more opportunities for everyone.
Nobody needs an obscene salary for writing code when others are struggling to afford the basics.
As an aside, I remember being really taken aback when I went on holiday to the US and most of the menial jobs were being carried out by Hispanic and Black people. I guess if you are a white American you get inured to it, but as a white European it was kind of creepy and a bit repulsive.
I guess freedom of movement allowing Eastern Europeans to legally live, work and pay tax in Western Europe without jumping through hoops, and immediately being able to benefit from the social systems there.
In my uncharitable opinion US is good for earning money as a young, highly educated person and for nothing else.
So go there when you are around 25, work your ass off at whoever pays the most for your skillset, spend as little as possible and bail before 35. Later you're screwed. You'll still make more and more there but the money is going to be useless.