> The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world.

Simply not true.

Infant mortality and under-five mortality rate (U5MR) are one of best simple indicators of the quality of healthcare. USA's mortality is x3 (!!!) of the countries on top. This puts USA around place 50 in the world, worse than Russia...

>The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world.

Yeah, I'm gonna need a citation for that. Because it sounds like a health insurance propoganda rather than the actual truth.

> The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world.

Do you have any evidence of that?

If you define quality as range of treatment options available, sure. If you define quality as range of treatment options that are accessible, absolutely not.

It is also significantly more expensive: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-health...

> The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world.

Source, backup your claims.

Health outcomes are WORSE than most other developed countries and that's the only statistic that matters here

Expenses are definitely higher, and doctors and hospital CEOs and med school CEOs do drive nicer cars and have bigger summer dachas, but I can't say the same about quality. Six month waits for a specialist, every PCP and shrink you'd want to visit not taking on new patients, ER wait times comparable with other developed nations, worse overall outcomes...

Maybe the top 0.5% is getting better care, but I really wouldn't shed a lot of crocodile tears for them.

> The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world.

Health outcomes do not support that statement.

Citation definitely needed.

Ive been to doctors in different countries including the USA. Theres nothing special with general practitioners with the USA.

Or if you end up in China, you can get blood panels for like 10RMB, MRI for 30RMB, and damn near automated to boot.

Go to Mexico for dental work. What costs you here $30k costs you $2k, and they take your insurance.

The US citizens are being gouged, because our government has been bought out by corporate interests who bribe, err, campaign donate to both parties. And thats across every economic activity. Medical is just an egregious one, alongside academics.

If everyone costs the system $10, and the five people pay $8, $9, $10, $11, and $12, respectively, I think it’s a mistake to say only the last two net-positive taxpayers are paying for the system.

There's no way that's true - include the employer side payroll taxes. Whether PPP or nominal my napkin math gives me 40% more tax payable in Australia

Edit: I'm too dumb to know whether to include superannuation as a tax or not so I'm not sure if I'm right or not.

Pointing out the myth of "socialism just means higher taxes and less freedom" will only draw the pitchforks to your door.

From the top:

  Health spending in 2023–24

  In 2023–24, Australia spent an estimated $270.5 billion on health goods and services– an average of approximately $10,037 per person. In real terms (adjusted for inflation), health spending increased by 1.1%, or $2.8 billion more than spending from 2022–23. 

  In 2023–24, health spending accounted for 10.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in Australia, approximately 0.2 percentage points higher than in 2022–23.

From the bottom:

  In Australia, 15% of all expenditure on health care comes directly from individuals in the form of out‐of‐pocket fees — this is almost double the amount contributed by private health insurers.

  There is concern that vulnerable groups — socio‐economically disadvantaged people and older Australians in particular, who also have higher health care needs — are spending larger proportions of their incomes on out‐of‐pocket fees for health care. 

  A 2019 study identified that one in three low income households are spending more than 10% of their income on health care. 

There's little to no public advertising of prescription drugs, cheap generics are widely available from federal scale bulk negotiation deals.

Health outcomes are greater life expectancy than the US, national scale cancer survuival rates are better by a few percentage points (IIRC - they are close but higher).

Australia has long had an innate "we're all in this together" society built on individualism. It's not great, it's not perfect, but the first instinct is generally to look after our own - across the board.

When I was in the USA just paying for things like a GP and a single specialist didn't seem outrageous coming from Australia.

If I worked in the US, I would have health insurance and would be paying lower out of pocket costs than I would in Australia. Combined with the higher salary and cheaper housing that's a pretty good deal.

Edit:

We allegedly have universal healthcare but that doesn't cover any actually competent specialist (need private healthcare for this) so paying $400 for 25 minutes of a psychiatrist every 2 months and $95 for 7 minutes of a GP is common.