Also, 12.4% of all Americans are uninsured and 28% are underinsured: http://fortune.com/2019/02/07/americans-health-care-underins... . Don't pretend the current situation in the US is anywhere near healthy.
As to your point about the uninsured--I'm not debating the merits of various healthcare systems, I'm trying to contextualize the experience of the typical American. The typical American has health insurance (and is not underinsured), pays $25 or so for their annual checkup, and lives in a house two and a half times bigger than their counterpart in the U.K. (That American is also a job loss + health scare away from significant financial problems. Both things are true.)
40% of those Americans are not your “typical” American. Americans also on average take 10 days of vacation, while 24% of private industry workers don’t have any day of vacation, and have no job security because they can be fired at any time. They also have to pay for their kid’s college education or have them take r
The median wealth of the US is also 97k$, compared to 113k€ in France. That’s not counting the fact that all retirement in France is publicly managed, meaning it doesn’t count into your wealth when it does in the US (except for social security)
As to wealth. I don't know what source you're looking at. This report shows the U.S. compares quite well to say Germany: https://www.credit-suisse.com/corporate/en/research/research... (pages 40, 44).
28.4% of Americans have under $10,000, while 33.6% have $100,000-$1m. In Germany, 40% are under $10,000, while 34.5% are $100,000-$1m. Switzerland does better than both--just 13.7% under $10,000, and 52.1% in $100,000-$1m.
Also, American wealth is not as high as you'd expect because America's savings rate is very low (5%, versus 10% for the EU and almost 15% in France). This is a trend that long predates things like soaring healthcare expenditures, and it has more to do with American consumer culture.
Not sure what you mean here. Do you mean things like le forfait hospitalier ? Which is like 20 bucks a day you're in the hospital (if your complementary insurance doesn't reimburse you). Usually you're at 80-90% coinsurance when you go to the hospital in the US with a top-tier insurance (which is going to run you ~1000-10000$ a day). Your source is also a 2003 document, which predates a lot of the current health crisis in the US.
> This report shows the U.S. compares quite well to say Germany
You're cherry-picking here: Germany is pretty well known to have lower wealth because of a prevalence of renting.
runako: If you make $23k, you don't have a job that gives you health insurance.
rayiner: None of this is a big deal, because most Americans have health insurance through their employer.
Er, what? Yeah, most do, I guess ... the part making much more than $23k.
Even among the groups most likely to lack health insurance (households of unrelated individuals making less than $25,000), uninsured + direct purchase (having to buy your own health insurance) only accounts for 1/3 of people in that segment. (Row 210.)
From row 200 of that table, looks like you're reading off the "Covered by some type of health insurance during the year" (85%) column. This is ambiguous. It could mean there was at least some period during the year where you had some sort of coverage. Or it could mean that you had some coverage for the entirety of the year.
Which is it?
As a person, you'll around 100% likely to the doctor. In any Western Europe country, you don't have to think about it. In the US, you either think about it because of your copay or your don't go because you don't have money.