It actually doesn't work there, but people like Grace will never admit it. If Norwegians could live here for a couple of years at a salary that American Norwegians make, they would definitely prefer to live here. The only reason they don't is because of years of brainwashing.
It works well but like all systems it has flaws. We moved to the US not because my parents would make more money but because my mom was born and raised here and wanted to move back to the US because at the time my grandmother passed away and she wanted to be home with her dad and family. We've been living here ever since. You couldn't hold dual citizenship in Norway up until literally this year and so we were here to stay.
Define "it works well"? Depends on how you define works well.
People in Norway earn less than Americans. This is universally true, of nearly all of Europe. And this is logical. The employer can't pay you in wages, what it pays the government in taxes, and naturally higher taxes on employers, means lower wages for employees.
Additionally, Norway has a much lower survival rate for major illnesses than the US does. You have a better chance of surviving in the US, for nearly any illness at all, than you do in Norway.
Now it is true, that Norway has one of the better health care systems in all of Europe. True!
It also has the second most expensive health systems in all of Europe.
Meaning that as things go on, Norway is on the verge of facing a health care crisis.
IT could help avert Norwegian healthcare crisis
The government run system is getting more and more expensive, and they don't have a solution as of yet.
So, if you are to say that the second most expensive system in all of Europe.... if have much lower survival rates than the US... and if having burdensome taxes high enough that people live a lower standard of living as a result....
if that is how you define "works well", then I agree... works very well.
The US medical system and technology is top quality, that's absolutely true, but the flaw in the system here is the out of pocket costs for average Americans, would you agree? Wages in Norway are high but so are the tax rates and so your take home pay in Norway is pretty much what you see is what you get. In the US you can have a decent wage, pay less in taxes, but one trip to the ER and you can easily drop $1,000 plus for a brief afternoon visit even with insurance. If it's more serious then it can get very out of hand for a middle class American who typically can't afford to drop several paychecks on a medical bill. So there is a trade off would you agree?
One system has the technology and accessibilty but potentially large out of pocket expenses even with health insurance, and the other system has not as great of technology or accessibility but once you meet your yearly deductible you don't pay anything else out of pocket. I know for me i'd personally rather pay more in taxes and ensure that I will have care that won't yield unexpected major medical expenses than I would to pay less in taxes and risk the unexpected and then try and figure out how to pay the bill. Right now my husband and I are always one major medical issue away from going from little to no debt up to large debt, and that's a common fear for most Americans in my personal opinion.
First... you are wonderful. I love chatting with people who disagree, but do so politely.
You and I may never come to an agreement on this topic, but we can at least be friendly, and I want you to know I appreciate that from you. You have a good character.
So yes, the cost of health care is higher than it could be.
There are large number of reasons for this.
1. Medicare and Medicaid.
Medicare and Medicaid do not pay enough money to cover the cost of care. This drives up costs on people like us. When you get a huge bill from the Hospital, you need to understand that your huge bill, is due to government run health care. You can see above, that has government payouts declined, hospitals and care providers increased costs on private patients, to make up the difference.
2. Regulations on hospitals.
Hospitals are highly regulated in the US, and the worst of these is the Certificate of Need (CON). CON laws, require that if you wish to open a hospital, you have to have a CON. Without that CON, you cannot open a hospital.
Now as with all regulations and controls, the people who most know about the system, are not politicians. Politicians don't have any idea if any given location needs a new hospital. Who would? Why, existing hospitals of course.
So the people who determine whether or not to issue a CON, are the existing hospitals.
Let us say that you yourself, come up with a new idea for providing a cheap alternative hospital for the public. You plan it out, and the government shows up "You need a Certificate of Need before you do that", so you go to the committee the issues CONs, and find all the other hospitals there, and they say "Oh you want to open a hospital that will provide care for a much lower price? Hmmm... I don't think we need another hospital".
Well that's what's going on. The government is using regulations to lock out competition in the health care market. If you want to know how that works, just imagine how high the prices would be at Walmart, if no one could open a competing store without a Certificate of Need.
3. Doctors and Medical Schools.
As much as we'd like to think doctors and higher education, is all about the good of the country, neither are. They are both self-interested.
Alone though, they could do nothing, but with the power of government, they can screw over an entire nation.
The government has restricted the ability of anyone to open competing medical schools. The government did this, because doctors, and existing medical schools wanted this done.
Why did they want this done? Because as with any supply and demand system, if you limit the number of schools, and the demand for schools increase, then medical schools can charge outrageous amounts of money. Which is exactly what they did.
Now you would think doctors would be against this, but they are most certainly for it, because keeping the number of Medical schools low and limited, reduces the number of doctors there are. That naturally again, means supply of doctors is low, while demand is high, thus doctors can charge high prices for their services.
Government once again, has caused a dramatic increase in the cost of medical care.
4. Regulations on insurance.
Every regulation on insurance, has pushed up the cost of insurance. One of the reasons why pre-existing condition clauses existed, was to prevent you, being a responsible person, being forced to pay for those who are not responsible.
Say I refuse to get insurance. I could have insurance, but I simply don't want to spend the $100 a month to have my own insurance. You on the other hand, are responsible, and you buy health insurance, and pay the $100 a month.
I get cancer. I contact an insurance company, and quickly sign up for insurance. Then I show up at the hospital, and well what do you know, I have insurance. Now the insurance company has to pay for my cancer treatment, even though I intentionally was irresponsible. And if I survive the cancer, I'll just cancel my insurance.
Insurance companies, like all companies, do not have just bags of money laying around to cover losses like that. So how does the insurance company survive such events? Same way all businesses have to survive. They charge customers more. Namely you. You end up paying a higher premimum for your insurance policy, specifically to cover people like me, who refuse to get insurance until their sick.
The only alternative to charging you more, is to have a pre-existing condition clause. By the way, this is why under Obama Care, they put in place the individual mandate to penalize people for not buying insurance, because they banned the pre-existing condition clause.
Of course it didn't work. The cost of the penalty was too low to make people buy insurance, and besides that, we are not supposed to be an authoritarian dictatorship, at least last I checked.
But that isn't all, there are hundreds of examples of regulations driving up insurance costs, like most states require insurance cover acupuncture. Other examples, Marriage counseling, alcoholism, drug addictions, mental illness.
Take myself for example. I have not had an alcoholic drink since the 1990s. Yet I have to pay for an insurance policy that covers alcoholism. Well that costs more.
5. Regulations on how health care is conducted.
So years ago, there was a freak out in the media over Hospital Aspirin. Why does it cost $20 or $30 to get an Aspirin in a hospital, when you can get a bottle of 500 pills for $15 at a store?
Well there's an answer. If you go into a US regulated hospital, you will find that Aspirin is individually wrapped. Each pill, or set of two pills, has it's on individual wrapper. Additionally, you will find that Aspirin is being given out by a highly paid Registered Nurse.
This costs money.
Now you compare that to many hospitals around the world, they have a economy bottle of Aspirin, and they have an intern or someone in training, handing out the medication.
This is cheap.
Government regulations on how Hospitals operate causes this. There is no reason that a hospital must have a highly paid registered nurse, buying super expensive individually wrapped pills, in order to hand out Aspirin. But regulations require it, because if some patient dies, and they find out a non-registered nurse gave out the pill... then they sue for incompetence, and the government steps in.
6. Lastly, a standard of service.
Now this is a difficult one, because it's going to come across as blaming the victim, but the reality is, it is entirely true.
Americans, when they are not directly paying the bill, demand service that is expensive.
A perfect contrary example to this would be Singapore. Like many hospitals around the world, they don't have tiny rooms with 2 beds, and curtains everywhere. Instead they have large floors that house 6 to 9 patients per room. There is no air conditioning, there is no cable TV, there is no WIFI, and high speed internet.
Of course, that is what makes it cheap. In Singapore, a base level bed, only costs $20 per night. But everyone ignores how different that base level bed is. Most are not even adjustable, not electric. There is no privacy either.
Singapore does have, small private rooms with all those things we think are normal and common in US health care, and unsurprisingly the price of those rooms in Singapore, is about the same as a normal room in the US is.
This drastically drives up the cost of health care, relative to the rest of the world. We want all that stuff in our hospital rooms. We want almost private, two beds to a room standards. We want air conditioning instead of just ceiling fans.
But that costs money.
I could go on....
But I think I made my point.
Again, thank you for being polite even when you disagree. That is fantastic, and I hope we can talk again, even if you never agree with me or me with you on anything.
