What do foreigners admire about the American healthcare system?

[tenderfoot]

What do foreigners admire about the American healthcare system? What part of their healthcare do they wish was more like America’s?


Andrius Saulis, studied at Uppsala University

I admire the US Healthcare System for how much the US government in conjunction with Big Pharma and Insurance Companies have bamboozled its citizens into believing that it’s okay for them to go completely bankrupt if they, for example, break an arm, have their appendicitis suddenly flare up, suffer a heart attack, or have any other type of medical accident/emergency - and don’t happen to have great insurance at the time.

I admire this simply because of the sheer gall, cunning and then conniving scheming that it takes to set this system up and not have the population instantly revolt but instead think that it is completely normal.

That exploitation takes a special kind of evil genius to cook up, which I applaud.

<snip>

Franklin Veaux, Small business owner, sexuality educator, writer

Nothing.

I travel extensively worldwide, I’ve spoken to many non-Americans about the US healthcare system, and it is universally the laughingstock of the world.

Non-Americans who don’t travel to America shake their heads and sigh at the miserable shambles of the American healthcare system. Non-Americans who do travel to America talk about how much they fear needing to use a US emergency room while they’re there. I mean, there are developing countries with a better healthcare system.

<snip>


Sina Taghva, Master's Software Engineering, Paris-Sud 11 University (2018)

I come from Iran. It’s a third world and theocratic country. Yet our healthcare is far superior to US. More than 90% of population are covered by state funded insurance and it covers 70% of the cost of drugs and 90% of public hospital costs. Even without insurance it’s so cheap and effective that people from nearby countries come for complicated surgeries. We even call it health-tourism. Around 30,000 people visit Iran each year to receive medical treatment. Most health tourists were from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Oman, India and Pakistan.

Our GDP per capita is $5,383 which is one tenth of USA. Total expenditure on health per capita is $,1082 and 6.9% of GDP (contrary to $9,403 and 17.1% in US). If your health care is inferior to a third world and economically sanctioned country that spend less than you on health, you have a serious problem because appreanltly all the money you spend goes to either insurance or pharmaceutical companies.

<snip>


Liam Crowleigh, studied Biology & Chemistry

I’m a foreigner and there’s nothing I admire about the American healthcare system.

I’ve spent some time working as part of the American healthcare system and getting training in it and aside from the medical knowledge I received (which wasn’t any different than I could have got in my own country - that I got it in the US was just a matter of where it was convenient at the time) I wouldn’t wish the US system on my worst enemy.

It’s not even a system so much as it’s a free-for all specializing in making money to the detriment of helping people.

American healthcare is great if you’re wealthy. It’s acceptable if you’re upper-middle class with secure employment and no pre-existing conditions. It’s not good if you’re middle class and lower and it’s abysmal if you have a pre-existing condition or don’t have a good job.



more: https://www.quora.com/What-do-foreigners-admire-about-the-American-healthcare-system-What-part-of-their-healthcare-do-they-wish-was-more-like-America%E2%80%99s

[Marie Marie]

1. Why does this sham of a system continue?

Never mind... I already know the answer.

[Docreed2003]

2. Nupthing...to quote my son's favorite phrase when he was three

And I say that as an American trained, specialist physician...

As a provider, the emphasis is on productivity...quantity over quality. There is no sympathy for those who can't afford life saving treatments. There are no tears shed for those bankrupted by this system. We are a joke. And I get it, doctors are the easy targets here because we're the face of the system that patients see so we are the ones who face the "slings and arrows" of patient discontent. While that anger is certainly justified in the sense that we, as physicians, haven't put or are unwilling to put pressure on our governing societies to force a change at the legislative level, the real criminals in this system are the health insurance companies and pharmaceutical industry that make their billions off the back of this broken system.

[MiddleClass]

11. When general practitioners

Do the majority of the work, control almost all health care decisions, get relative peanuts.

And a insurance executive gets millions for providing relatively nothing through the system.

There is something seriously wrong.

When the highest-paid people are insurance and pharmaceutical executives there is a problem.

You know you have a problem when hedge fund managers are buying up pharmaceutical companies, cornering the market and jacking up prices 500 percent with the law on their side. Something is seriously wrong

[Lyricalinklines]

3. We have for profit system, which profits mainly Insurance industry, Big Pharma and government.

Until that changes, which it won't with current sheeple assuming authority, we'll have death for most. Who will mind the shop then?

Its not a free market system like the repubs want us to believe it will be. Insurance made side deals of who would take what areas so as to give insurance companies the greatest dollar amount profit in any given market. (Insurance isn't the only corporate industry top do this - cable, phone, energy to name a few) Additionally, republicans have voted repeatedly to under fund/not fund the laws within the ACA so they can say is failing.

The republicans have sold out this nation to corporations/a percentage of the top 1%, who actually could wipe out the debt issues if they paid their fair share in taxes and stopped housing their money outside the US, which is also tax free.

[napi21]

4. Absolutely NOTHING! My son was working in Sicily for 15 years. and married a girl from

Romania. They have a daughter & son-in-law who are Doctors in Germany. Both Docs said they would NEVER practice medicine in the US! Mainly because during their entire lives they've had socialized medicine. Their belief is NOBODY should need treatment for anything and not get it because of MONEY! Their drugs are much less expensive, there are some treatments the patient must pay for, but we're talking in terms of $10, $20, $30. NEVER a bankruptcy amount!

[burrowowl]

5. I lived in France for over 20 years

and U$ health system is a sham!

[rpannier]

6. I've lived in Korea for over 15 years and the only thing I admire about it is

it makes me appreciate Korean Health Care more. We're on the average end of the health care spectrum (IMO) of advanced economies and we're 1000000000x better than what is in my former country
Though the ACA did make US health care marginally better

[not fooled]

7. And the pukes are working on

making it significantly worse. Even as we speak (Senate pukes and their super-secret coven).

The triumph of faux snooze: getting enough Americans to believe that we have the best healthcare system in the world.





Truly America is the laughingstock of the world for s*it like this.

[CanSocDem]

9. That it is the best arguement EVER...

...for researching alternative medicine.


.

[ck4829]

10. Because our healthcare system is not about treating illness and injury, but about social control

Excluding the 'wrong' people from care, blaming the victim, constructing differences in race, class, and gender, etc.