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Comment by throwaway8291 | Hacker News Reader

I'm lucky to be European. I can sleep well, since almost everybody got their basic health care need covered by our system. About 15% of my income goes into healthcare provider - once I am registered, I can use almost any facility available (doctors, dental, traditional or even some alternative medicine approaches, ...), if required.

The system is not even that complicated. I am not sure what holds the US back to have a humane care system.

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Most European countries modernised their health care systems at some point in the chaos of the early 20th century, typically shortly after ww2. It was a time of huge social upheaval anyway. The current culture is less tolerant of sweeping change to how things are done.

FWIW, I pay way less than that for health insurance an an annual basis. Even if two members of my family faced catastrophic health issues, my maximum out of pockets is less that 15% of my income. I am a reasonably high earner, though nowhere near the 1%. Lower income Americans have extremely generous subsidies on health insurance and medical providers often have programs to reduce or completely write off medical expenses of people who can not afford them.

> I am not sure what holds the US back to have a humane care system.

A huge industry (almost 18% of US GDP) that has a lot of lobbying power and influence, combined with with decades of anti-socialism messaging.

>I am not sure ...//

It's simple greed, people want to be healthy, rich people can interject themselves into that desire and 'tax' health/wellness.

Yay capitalism!

That’s probably over simplistic. The current US system doesn’t actually benefit most well-off people; the person who wrote the article probably qualifies as rich by most metrics. There are obviously companies which benefit, but on the whole it’s like it is because large-scale change is hard. Note that even the modest reforms under Obamacare were politically poisonous at the time, even though its somewhat popular now; making a change with long term benefits but short term cost and inconvenience is always hard politically.

I think many Europeans don’t really understand how much less centralized and cohesive the US is than any given European country. That plays a big role in why our system of health care is so disjointed.

Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar.

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