UK, Italy, France quality decline, now poorer than all 50 states

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The taxation has killed the economies. Too many socialist at the voting booths. The same trend the US in on.

We’re not the ones lighting money on fire with needless wars and ballrooms.

+1

Dementia Man sucking up and stealing all our money with no improvement to our lives.

Well, they're the ones paying billions to give free housing and benefits to illegal migrants and look the other way around and bury official reports when migrants rape women or attack people. The US has never experienced anything like the grooming gang scandals in the UK.

I love Europe but they have many problems.

And we have many many problems here, too. At least European governments try to take care of their people. Our government currently gives a big finger to Americans who need health insurance.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:When I travel around Europe, the biggest safety issue I have to worry about is pickpockets. When I travel in the US, or just live here, the biggest safety issue I have to worry about is shootings.

I'll take pickpockets over shootings.

You seriously worry about shootings when you go around your life in the USA? Even in our major cities like NYC, you are more likely to be shoved into the tracks of a subway or stabbed by a crazy person in Manhattan than getting shot in the Bronx.

Yes I worry about shootings when I sit in my church, or go to the movie, or a crowded venue. I worry about school shootings. My kids have had a few lockdowns in HS, and not drills. There were guns in the school.

We have hundreds of mass shootings in this country every year. No other developed country has our issue. Why are you proud of that?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:UK NHS is great for routine MD visits and for A&E. However, it has long queues (over a year is not so unusual) for a good sized list of medical procedures.

I likely would be dead if my heart issue had arisen while under NHS care -- and UK colleagues all agree -- because of a long queue (12+ months at that time) to get the needed heart procedure. By contrast, in the US I was able to get the needed heart MRI and other needed tests completed in a few weeks, then get the needed heart procedure completed within 2 months of the original incident. Waiting 12+ months for that procedure, my likely outcome was death.

What some UK colleagues do to work around the long queues when needed is to go private (outside NHS) -- curiously often with identical hospitals and providers. They have to pay through the nose when they do this. Medical debt is an issue there as well as here being one result.

NHS can be great but often not for non-urgent or non-critical care. I think it’s good to have those who can afford it taking out private insurance or paying privately. It relieves some of the pressure on the public system. That is kind of the Australian model.

I had both of my children under the NHS. It was great and I didn’t pay a cent. When my daughter was diagnosed with a kidney issue, she was immediately referred to a specialist at Evelina Hospital, probably the best pediatric hospital in the UK. When my son developed an egg allergy, he was immediately referred to Dr Adam Fox, one of the best pediatric allergists. This was about 15 years ago. But if you need a knee replacement, I imagine you could be waiting for years.

But you could also pay oop for the knee surgery which is cheaper than the US. Or go to places like Thailand or Korea to get quality medical care.

At least you haven't been paying tens of thousands of dollars for basic catastrophic insurance like we have here, and then the crap insurance company could also deny the knee surgery. Then you have to spend many many hours on the phone with your insurance company fighting it.

I don't pay tens of thousands for health insurance. You're clearly not working, I'm guessing? So it's a decision you made when you left the workforce. I do agree that it's not ideal that health insurance is so dependent on jobs but that's what most Americans do and it does work out for most people. American healthcare is ridiculously expensive because it is also overly generous and risk averse (making it even more generous than it really needs to be, which is why bills mount up so rapidly). We can complain about the system (and every country complains about their system) but we do have to work with what we have and you made certain decisions that put you in this particular place.

This is literally indentured servitude to have to work Full Time for a big enough company forced to provide decent healthcare plans till 65 just to afford healthcare. a lot of people who could retire earlier or want to scale down to part time work are forced to either keep grinding for healthcare coverage or quit and be poor to apply for various subsidies. Guess which one is a more popular option? And this keep driving costs for everyone too. This system of employer sponsored insurance is a death trap that will eventually compound the issue so much that the entire system will collapse anyway.

The average retirement ages in western Europe is comparable to the US so it seems like a moot point in the general scheme of things. Though I'd love for healthcare in the US not be job-specific. But pragmatically, I don't see a good alternative. T

Public healthcare + private health insurance - that's what most developed countries have. Why can't we? Because Rs/Trump/MAGA are beholden to corporations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just returned from 4 weeks in the UK and France.

The lack of dental care in the UK was shocking. I've lived in very poor parts of the US but never seen the poor dental care that I saw in the UK.
I saw so many people missing teeth in their mid thirties or low forties that it was shocking

In the US we have inexpensive dentures. Americans will work a second job if they have to to fund their dentures.

The cafes in Paris were shocking. Parisians live in such small units that they go out to cafes but you literally sit shoulder to shoulder in the cafes.

It was tough to find a native born Londoner in London.

Cork was depressing. It felt like the entire city needed to be pressure washed and painted. There was peeling pain everywhere and the city was dirty.

Um.. I can find depressing dirty cities in the US, too. Also, Cork is a hell of a lot older than the US.

London is a transient, cosmopolitan city. How many UMC/wealthy native born DCers do you think there are?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Norway, Finland and Denmark are also socialist countries with higher standards of living that the US.

Sweden is eliminating the social programs and going capitalist. They have had growing GDP the last 3 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Norway, Finland and Denmark are also socialist countries with higher standards of living that the US.

Sweden is eliminating the social programs and going capitalist. They have had growing GDP the last 3 years.

and Sweden is #5 happiest country. I don't think it's because of "growing capitalism" since it's been in the top 10 happiest country for many years.

[Anonymous]

https://www.dailymail.com/home/index.html

Sudanese man seeking asylum in the UK attempted to behead an Irishman in the middle of the street.

The incident occurred in Belfast.

Three Irishman stumbled upon the scene and saved the man's life.

The Sudanese man flew from Paris to Dublin and then took a bus to Belfast to request asylum in the UK. He was immediately granted 5 year asylum upon entry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UK NHS is great for routine MD visits and for A&E. However, it has long queues (over a year is not so unusual) for a good sized list of medical procedures.

I likely would be dead if my heart issue had arisen while under NHS care -- and UK colleagues all agree -- because of a long queue (12+ months at that time) to get the needed heart procedure. By contrast, in the US I was able to get the needed heart MRI and other needed tests completed in a few weeks, then get the needed heart procedure completed within 2 months of the original incident. Waiting 12+ months for that procedure, my likely outcome was death.

What some UK colleagues do to work around the long queues when needed is to go private (outside NHS) -- curiously often with identical hospitals and providers. They have to pay through the nose when they do this. Medical debt is an issue there as well as here being one result.

You are also assigned specialists in the UK. If you want to change your gastroenterologist in the UK you have to go before a board to make the request and this is about an 8 month process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“America innovates, China replicates, Europe regulates” — Georgia Meloni, Italian Prime Minister

Also the US capital markets are extremely vast & dynamic. There is no other like it in the world to support an entrepreneurial culture.

On my latest European visit a number of young people told me they invest in the US stock market each week.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’d rather live in any of those places than here. The universal healthcare alone would be a relief.

Exactly.

a relief from what, available heatlhcare and quality? Yes it may be expensive but remember we make like twice the amount of europe and its doesn't cost as much comapred to the taxes on income.

? The amount we pay in premiums + deductible is about $20K for a family of 3 in the US.

I guess we need to make more to pay for the outrageous healthcare and college costs.

Our UMC friends in the UK don't have to worry about paying for health care costs or college that much. Sure, we may have more than them, but we worry more about paying for medical care. They are able to retire early and not worry about health insurance. We are forced to work longer just for the health insurance.

We're seriously thinking of living there for a few years before I qualify for medicare (spouse is a dual citizen). ACA premiums for a 60 yr old hdp is about $1000/month.

We did a cost comparison with our friends in the UK, and we pay a lot more than they do overall.

Our UK tax bracket would be 20%. There is no joint filing in the UK.

So, if each of us have an income of $65k (ish), we each get taxed 20% (13K). That tax amount (13k) ends up being lower than the expected healthcare costs of a 60 yr old person in the US.

So, yes, the UK is cheaper when you factor in how expensive healthcare is in the US.

I work for a f500 and do not pay anywhere close to 20k a year for healthcare. The numbers you're quoting is more for self employed people buying their own insurance. I did Google this and it seems like the average family of 4 pays between 6-7k and year with the employer covering the rest.

The average UK student graduates from university with a higher debt than the average American graduate. Google says it's 53,000 pounds, or $71k. The average college debt in the US is $43k. And starting salaries for college grads in the US is a lot higher.

So be careful when cherry picking your examples.

Americans have to work until 65 so they don't have to pay $20K/year on healthcare.

Also, not all employers in the US pay for health insurance. As a matter of fact, about 15% to 20% of the population had zero health insurance before ACA. These were not all self employed people. And now, of course, thanks to Rs, many have lost their ACA insurance.

Americans have less college debt in part because we the taxpayers bail them out, and some of the colleges here are rich. But, it's not about debt. It's about how much we are paying for college here compared to the UK.

I recall a French person on this forum saying that they like how they can make more money here, and their private insurance here is great, but if they lost their job due to illness they'd probably move back to France. The majority of bankruptcies in the US are due to medical reasons. That's unheard of in Europe.

America is a great place to make money, not have a quality of life. We have less leave, vacation, more pesticides in our food, more big corp money involved in our everyday of life - food, politics, etc.. It's insidious.

Glass is half full or half empty, eh?

Average age of retirement in UK is 65, same with Germany. So seems like a moot point.

I lived in the UK for years and in an UMC world. You're spinning a scenario that isn't typical. What I saw was people working long hours, with long commutes, with pleasant but not extravagant lives, and constant money worries especially affording good housing and school fees for children. Most also had some kind of private insurance access.

Contrary to what another poster idealized on here, administrators or national health care systems aren't focused on the best possible care but stretching out a reasonable standard of care among a bigger and bigger population (FYI health care expenditures are also soaring in UK, funding the NHS and where the money actually goes is a perennial political football topic, complaints about a bloated bureaucracy, controlling costs and unaccountability are widespread).

I am sure we can all agree Denmark and similar countries are winners, but they are also small, highly homogenous, wealthy, in other words, they have it easier.

? You don't think in the US UMC people work long hours, have long commutes? LOL

Yes, in the UK and most other civilized worlds, they have two choices: private insurance and government funded care. Only we have one choice.

In other countries, one can retire early if they saved enough without having to worry about healthcare. That's not possible here. No one moves to the US to retire, but plenty of Americans retire overseas, including to Europe. They move because the US is unaffordable, especially the healthcare.

Like I said, the US is great for making money, and if you have a lot of money, but if you don't, then it sucks.

There is a lot of resentment in Portugal about the American expats. The expat neighborhoods have electricity and safe water 24 hours a day. Local Portuguese villages have intermittent electricity and residents have to brush their teeth with bottled water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Norway, Finland and Denmark are also socialist countries with higher standards of living that the US.

Sweden is eliminating the social programs and going capitalist. They have had growing GDP the last 3 years.

This actually is true...and they are not so quick to take in arbitrary asylum seekers these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I travel around Europe, the biggest safety issue I have to worry about is pickpockets. When I travel in the US, or just live here, the biggest safety issue I have to worry about is shootings.

I'll take pickpockets over shootings.

Disagree. Shootings are so rare but pickpockets are endemic in Europe. And cops don’t seem to care.

Really depends where you are in Europe. Let me guess you only went to Barcelona/Paris/London?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The taxation has killed the economies. Too many socialist at the voting booths. The same trend the US in on.

We’re not the ones lighting money on fire with needless wars and ballrooms.

+1

Dementia Man sucking up and stealing all our money with no improvement to our lives.

Well, they're the ones paying billions to give free housing and benefits to illegal migrants and look the other way around and bury official reports when migrants rape women or attack people. The US has never experienced anything like the grooming gang scandals in the UK.

I love Europe but they have many problems.

Our President was at the center of a "grooming gang" along with many of his Cabinet members and high-ranking officials. I think we're plenty experienced with things like that.