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Comment by ricardobayes | Hacker News Reader

Having lived in Europe all my life, I have yet to find one country with a well-working universal healthcare. Almost every single universal healthcare worker I met is overworked, rude, or straight up not even showing up. I keep hearing stories on a weekly basis in my friend circle that people are turned away and/or not given adequate care. They just treat you like an interruption of their day and not the reason they are there for.

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Statistically, European healthcare seems to be doing fine compared to e.g. the US [0]

[0]: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...

Statistics presented there doesn't necessary show healthcare system performance. Life expectancy will be dependent on a lot of other things, like population genetics/diet/lifestyle.

Also, regarding healthcare system quality, one of related statistics from this article are in favor of US: "30-day mortality for heart attacks and strokes is lower in the U.S. than in comparable countries". Same with ischemic stroke(and it's better in US by quiet much, 4.1 vs 6.1 30-day mortality rate per 100 patients in other countries).

I have excellent experiences with public healthcare; worst run-ins were in NL (where I am from); best experiences I had in HK, ES and PT. Fast (much much faster than NL) for routine tests (ct, rmi, scopes, radio) and everything else. And no deductible like in NL or with private.

I guess it depends where and what and how but me and my friends experiences are very different from what you say, especially after having had experiences with private healthcare in other countries with colleagues where I was present.

I don't understand all of these abbreviations

Hong Kong (HK), Spain (ES), Portugal (PT), Netherlands (NL)

CT scan (ct), RMI scan (rmi), endoscopy/colonoscopy/etc (scopes), radiography scan (radio)

Funny, that's exactly what we're paying outrageously high prices for the privilege of experiencing here in the US too.

This is typical of how the US does things: other countries don't have a perfect solution, therefore we will stick with our much worse solution.

Have you tried a concierge medicine service? While I agree that health-insurance-based providers have a lot of service problems, concierge medicine services seem to have better experiences since they're entirely choice-based.

Concierge medical services don't scale. Also, they exist in places with universal health care as well, so it's a wash.

It happens in the US too. As far as I'm aware, the only difference is that we get a huge bill at the end.

But what "inadequate care" are you talking about?

Having lived in Europe all my life, I don't recognize that qualification at all. Yes, medical professionals are people too, so they can be overworked (especially since Covid), rude or absent. But on the whole, they come across to me as friendly, caring and professional.

Do doctors sometimes not give patients what they demand? Absolutely. But that's the way it's supposed to be - it's hard to make rational decisions when your own health, or that of a loved one, is on the line. That's why doctors consult doctors too.

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