That’s a really good point. My understanding however was that you still need to pay some parts of the treatments, even with top healthcare?

I’m no specialist on the US system, so could be wrong, but I heard from a friend who paid $4K cash for a broken ankle (arguably out of a total bill of $25K+, and not sure what type of healthcare they had), whereas your bill in the U.K., France or Spain for the same injury would be exactly zero (as an example, from countries I know better). The same would be true, I believe, for child birth for instance (again, I could be wrong as relying on second-hand accounts in both cases).

Agreed on the type of specialist you would get in the U.K., although in my experience it’s always been very feasible to see top specialists when warranted, even on public healthcare. You would typically get faster access for non-essential care on a private basis though.

Overall, it seems from Yours and other comments that the salary multiple in U.S. tech specifically may still be significant and would probably make these moot.

>I’m no specialist on the US system, so could be wrong, but I heard from a friend who paid $4K cash for a broken ankle (arguably out of a total bill of $25K+, and not sure what type of healthcare they had), whereas your bill in the U.K., France or Spain for the same injury would be exactly zero (as an example, from countries I know better)

UK, yes. In France, aren't there copayments? I thought the French system typically covers 70% of hospital bills.

That is a given for every resident in most European countries.

Edit: it seems I am wrong. I commented a bit too fast.

That's not true. For example in Germany there is an explicit difference between statutory healthcare and private healthcare. Private healthcare will get you to the front of the line and will give you easy access to all services. With statutory healthcare you will have to go around searching for specialists who have time for you, as most will refuse you on account of them being "fully booked".

I'm a German with statutory healthcare.

> most [specialists] will refuse you on account of them being "fully booked"

I don't deny that this does happen, but it's not as inevitable as you make it sound. I've seen about a dozen separate specialists over the years for various reasons, and have never had such problems. There were a few outliers where I had to wait several weeks for an appointment, but that was only for non-urgent matters and I was never refused service. In most cases, I can get an appointment within 1-5 days of calling the doctor's office.

My suspicion is that such overload as you describe is a regional issue, so if, as an immigrant, you need to rely on certain specialists because of chronic ailments, it may be worth to investigate the availability of the relevant specialist doctor beforehand.

>That is a given for every resident in most European countries.

Based on what I've heard it's not a given in the UK for example. Need non-guaranteed GP referral (ie: they may say no) for a specialist and there's often a long waiting period.

Even if it were a given, the point I believe they were trying to make was in addition to the much larger salary, they ALSO have good healthcare