Medical bills cause a steady stream of bankruptcies in the US. It's much less common in many other countries.

Those people often do have insurance. They were paying. They are often shocked to find their insurance rejected their claim.

The point is, in most of Europe it’s the richer folks that foot the bill for the poorer ones. That’s a system based on solidarity - you contribute to our collective ability to treat our sick and injured, according to your financial means.

EDIT: at least that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory. Of course the richest people don’t foot the bill for anyone but themselves.

In Germany we have a two-prong system of public and private health insurance, so the richer folks actually remove themselves from the solidarity system, leaving the middle class with good jobs to pay for most of the expenses.

Is it similar in other european countries?

The German system is interestingly (but not surprisingly fucked up). In Switzerland there is a mandatory health insurance (which provides for most healthcare needs), but insurances are private companies which charge different prices for the same service (because of course they would), which vary greatly according to which village you live in (because our “states” negotiate the prices with the health providers and then insurances, through a very transparent and understandable system; I am kidding of course, probably the people designing it don’t even understand it fully, citizens and politicians damn sure don’t). Prices have been steadily rising for my whole adult life with no end in sight. There have been some tries to get rid of that in favor of universal healthcare managed by the state, but the people said “no” because they fully understood and weighed the issue (I am kidding, the people defending the current system just bought more ads than the people pushing for change).

But hey, at least getting run over by an ambulance won’t bankrupt you! Silver linings, eh?

In neighboring Nederland, all healthcare is privately insured and administered but the costs are capped by the government with small increases for inflation every year. Having insurance is also mandatory so nobody is left out. If you can’t afford it, the welfare system also picks up your monthly premium.

For people who use more resources, there is an annual deductible of around €500 per person that resets with the new year. After you pay the deductible, the rest of your care and medication is free.

Personally, now living here 2 years, I think it’s a good system that compromises in many of the right areas. My biggest complaint is that your GP is the gatekeeper to all other care, so if you are certain you need to see a specialist, you’ll need to convince your GP first. That all fine and dandy when we’re talking about an ENT doctor for example, but hella annoying when you need to get a referral for a therapist that is covered by insurance. The Dutch drug prices are also ridiculous (allergy meds and other specialized OTC drugs are insanely expensive) but luckily I can order them online from Germany for much more reasonable tariffs! ;)

In practice, it is healthy people making "sacrifices" to not eat shit and do exercise are footing biils for couch potatoes who eat shit all day.

Ah, so exactly like health insurance?

yep

Right, what these people don't understand is the US already has a socialized medical care system, it's just shit. Insurance also turns a profit, and they also have the highest incentive to not pay for care AND make healthcare provider's jobs as difficult as possible.

It's a socialized system but with inefficiency baked in and guaranteed. That's why the US pays significantly more for healthcare while also having worse quality care.

Absolutely, but OP made it sound that he was baffled that people had to pay for an ambulance. But then again maybe there is an European country I don’t know of where ambulances are provided for free by some car company, fueled through the generous donation of an energy company, supplied by a good-hearted medical supplies company and manned and driven by unpaid interns and/or students?

The solidarity system most European countries have is without a doubt superior than the mess that is the US healthcare system, but it sure as fuck isn’t free.

What other countries pay for healthcare, the US taxpayer pays for their military (much more actually) so for the end user, free healthcare is much better.

This is such a tired, pedantic retort. Nobody believes that taxpayer-funded services are "not paid for". OP obviously meant "pay for fully by the individual at the point of sale."

And yes, as an American, it also boggles my mind that we have to pay for emergency health services including ambulances[1]. My wife, who is not from a stone-age civilization like ours, didn't realize it either the first time we needed to hit up the emergency room. Thankfully I was able to convince her to not call for an ambulance, and I drove myself to the hospital.

1: individually, just so I'm clear

I am sorry you feel it was a tired and pedantic retort, I might just have misunderstood what OP was trying to say. I was not trying to be pedantic, just to point out that some people (in this case, also OP) think we somehow get healthcare thrown at us for free when this is far from being the case.

In the case of Switzerland (which is in Europe, at least geographically) we do not have a “taxpayer-funded system” (see my other comment in the thread) and that ambulance ride would have to have been (depending on your insurance providers which go with a “you pay now, we reimburse later”, literally) paid fully at the individual at the point of sale (in the most logical model for someone in good health, the first 2’500 CHF + 10% up to 700 CHF a year are “self pay”).

Moreover, ambulance rides are not covered by the health care insurance in case of “accidents”. Which in this case (being run over by an ambulance) it very clearly is. It might be covered by the accident insurance, if you have one (which to be fair is the case if you work more than 20%). In case of “sickness”, some complementary insurances might reimburse for part of these costs.

You would probably find that this is actually the case in many European countries. The American healthcare system might be broken, but please don’t pretend that the ones in Europe aren’t and that we all live in some kind of healthcare utopia (see someone else’s post about the two-speed German system in the thread).

Healthcare is very lucrative, and greed does not know any borders.