Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except...
by thatfrenchguy on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:24PM
(#19744158)
> France has low co-pays, but quite substantial co-insurance requirements
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.
Re:Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except...
by turtlesdown on Friday April 26, 2019 @10:50AM
(#19758109)
You can't win a bad argument by just moving to an adjacent position (which is still wrong)
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.