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Comment by seppin | Hacker News Reader

> You got it right, it's difficult to imagine for a European what it's like to deal with having no medical care if unemployed.

you buy subsidized insurance. do Europeans really think the USA is just a free for all ?

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Yes, or worse. I'm American. I live in Norway. Most folks I talk to from other countries - not just Europe - find the American health care system to be cruel and too expensive for the common person.

And by the way, I do not buy subsidized insurance. I pay my taxes, and I have health insurance. My taxes pay for health insurance. There is nothing else to pay to get that, other than a small fee for the doctor out of pocket up to a certain amount. No doctor, no medicine = no payment. Other than taxes, assuming I'm working and paying taxes.

Nit: "everyone" pays taxes - you get healthcare even if you don't pay any taxes (eg: college student without taxable income, unemployed not receiving benefits (yes, there's income tax on unemployment benefits)).

That's a very small bit of the population, but you are right. Nearly everyone gets health care, minus some classes of immigrants. I knew there were taxes on unemployment benefits (and i'm not opposed to that). But even the folks not paying employment taxes generally pay tax through food, transportation, entertainment, and other things.

There's a point below which you can't afford any kind of even subsidized insurance. Not if you want to keep paying rent, buy food, car insurance to keep going to work, phone bill, electric bill and so on. Whereas in the part of Europe where I live, the less you have the less healthcare costs you.

EDIT: The less it costs for the same quality.

I'm not really sure where you get your information. Anyone can get Heath insurance from the healthcare.gov marketplace.

Your salary requirements factor into the price. Someone making only 17k a year is capped at $54 a month premium. There are caps at certain salary intervals.

> Whereas in the part of Europe where I live, the less you have the less healthcare costs you.

100% true for the US as well. Please don't listen to news or internet comments. Verify the facts!

If you are not getting subsidized because of income, you have to pay for everyone else who is subsidized.

I was buying plans from health care exchange for 2 years and my last plan for two (parent and child) cost me 500$ per month with 6500 deductible per person - 13000$ total.

So effectively I had only a catastrophic insurance but was forced to pay for some subsidized guys who had a platinum plan with no deductible for 54$ per month. Worst situation for people like me!

Before that point you qualify for free insurance through one of many government welfare programs. Learn about the system before you criticize it.

That's actually not true in any of the states that didn't sign on to the ACA Medicaid expansion, which, yes, was designed so that between exchange subsidies and Medicaid eligibility there would be affordable subsidized or government provided coverage across the whole spectrum where people didn't have employer coverage or the ability to afford unsubsidized coverage.

It's also not true of extremely high cost of living areas such as NYC or the bay area where you're living beyond your means long before you qualify for government programs based on poverty levels that are calculated averaged across the nation.

The system has warts. There are good reasons to criticize it. But saying we leave the poor dying in the streets because, well, fuck 'em they're poor, is both untrue and insulting.

> But saying we leave the poor dying in the streets because, well, fuck 'em they're poor, is both untrue and insulting.

Well, except that it's exactly true that that’s why the “warts” that you acknowledge which do, in fact, deny swaths of the poor access to care are tolerated.

Subsidized insurance which still gives you costs for healthcare and sometimes doesn't cover certain tests or treatments that are considered not essential, such as birth control to treat polycystic ovaries or a blood test to diagnose functional sexual hormone levels(such a test would also detect polycystic ovaries, which untreated results in further health complications), More effective antibiotics for infection, multiple kinds of mental health medication, and dermatological medication. Not to mention confusing limitAtions of location of treatment due to network effects.

They do because that's how most educated Americans describe their country to Europeans.

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