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Comment by no_butterscotch | Hacker News Reader

So much he said she said is the UK better than us with healthcare or not?!

It's better in that it's free, but it's been defunded so much that it's beginning to fall apart.

Private healthcare is basically broken out the gate, public healthcare can be much better but it still does need to be funded.

I would say it’s been defunded relative to the expected pensioner to worker ratio.

Much of Europe went wild assuming that we would always have 5 to 7 workers per person retired to care for, and I won’t be surprised if we get down to 1 to 2 in the next 50 years.

That’s a type of system collapse people aren’t prepared for.

If it were possible to answer that with a simple yes or a no, it wouldn’t be such a perennial debate.

Clearly both systems have benefits and drawbacks.

It's a perrenial debate due to ideology, not actual stats. The UK, despite the struggles the NIH has with.... everything, still has better outcomes than the US. This is JUST "outcomes" btw, as the UK also rates significantly higher than the US in "access to care". The US also has nearly twice as many "deaths that could be prevented by timely access to healthcare".

The main complaint about the UK system that people quote is "it takes a while to see a doctor" but that's true about most people here in the US as well. If you have not top-line insurance or live in a slightly rural area or a million other things.

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