The one thing even Americans who have health insurance don't realize about single payer healthcare systems, is that we don't worry about it.

We don't consider it when switching jobs, we don't think about it when we're sick, we don't worry about medical bills.... we just go to the doctor/hospital, and worry about getting better or dealing with the work implications of taking time off.

The weight for that piece simply doesn't rest on our shoulders or minds at all.

You've been tricked and brainwashed you into thinking what you have is normal, and it's disturbing how many of you think it's a reasonable way to continue.

You pay taxes but get no benefit of them . They are used for subdivise automaker ,wallmart ,meat and dairy lobby and killing ciilvilan in other countries . I don't understand why american are OK with that .

That system is shit and a danger to the people and to the unity a nation needs.

In Germany we don't even think about this system when we are ill - we simply go to the doctor whatever it is, and we call an ambulance if it's necessary. Not a single thought.

I mean it's literally one of the good reasons to even have a society. I think whatever the fuck this is, it's more like a good damn competition or something like that. It's insane. Americans are insane for thinking that they are all temporarily inconvenienced millionaires in the making, and seemingly can't understand basic empathy for all those that would be non millionaires. I think money making global corporations are soulless complex machines of torture and warfare that are completely psychopathic entities that will destroy anything or anyone standing between it and profits, and instead of controlling that you keep complaining when those machines end up hurting you. These dark corrupted demonic beings of hatred are also just without any oversight abusing and murdering people in other countries making this a world wide problem. I think your dollar scam has ruined the economy of the entire world by being a particularly self centered grifting scheme that for decades has proven to be out of control and toxic to the entire human race.

Orphan Crushing Machine

Guns are a right, but you can be jailed for getting an abortion. The US is turning into a third world country.

The only way I'd live in the States is if I was making so much money that a 20k medical bill meant nothing to me.

I stopped having sympathy during the Obama administration. When half of the country will willingly and intentionally fuck themselves over to prove a point, when a political party will reverse course on a life saving piece of legislation because the other side agreed to it, and those same people continue to get elected, it's not worth my emotional energy to give a fuck anymore.

Y'all deserve what you have. It's not good but it's what you want.

It's a so foreign concept for me. Needing to rationalize about going to ER. I feel sorry. People are dying and people are tricked into believing it's the better alternative. But There is a better way, and it's only denied because of greed.

In Europe the US healthcare system is seen as a joke and medieval. Same for most social services I'm the US. Like somebody else said I stopped feeling sympathy a while ago.

Shaking my head and glad I'm not living in the US.

A country can decide how to treat people, how to shape the future. I get that nothing is perfect and everything is complicated. But I completely don't get why the US doesn't want to tackle some of the problems. Mainly school shootings, healthcare, social security and a democratic system by today's standards. Maybe the latter is the answer why... And watching documentaries about the rural areas, it seems like the USA is mostly a third world country, except for in the cities.

I think third world country.

Honestly, I am so glad my parents didn't move to the USA and moved to the UK instead. Me and my sister had several health issues including asthma, food allergies, broken bones playing sports, and as a result several hospital and doctor visits. Considering my parents were self employed shop keepers, I don't know if we'd be alive, let alone what sort of life we would have had. Then also having to pay for college would've been tricky. Having so few work holidays also completely sucks!

We are now both professionals with great jobs, paying lots of taxes and volunteer a lot to try to give back. Would that be possible in the USA - I honestly have no idea! Would we move to the USA - absolutely no way! We'd both actually earn lots more money in the USA in the same role but factoring in health and happiness, it's not worth it.

When you hear "greatest country on earth" and "the American dream", I think anybody in Western countries really roll their eyes. It's not a utopia here in the UK but nobody claims it to be, and stories like this just prove we are better off here.

However, we know the people themselves are great and don't deserve this position. We feel sorry for you and wish part of your population would travel and see things for themselves to push for changes back home.

In the UK, we are terrified that we will end up in the same position as our out of touch political elite and ultra wealthy would love to copy this.

I'm from the US, and I moved to Canada for 4 years for work. As a young adults, my partner and I had revolving medical debt. Not a ton, but enough to make it annoying. A couple thousand here and there. It felt like I was always had a hospital bill that we were trying to pay off. When we moved to Canada it was weird for us because, just as another person in here stated, you just didn't have to think about going to the doctor. I had major stomach surgery, we had a kid, we got monetary support for our other kid who's on the spectrum to take them to therapy... We got gtube supplies, meds for infections.... Anything we needed was covered. Not once did I think oh man, this is going to wreck us. Well, that's not true, I thought that the first time I took my oldest to the doctor to get an xray because we thought they might have broken a bone, but that was just a thought and it didn't actually cost us a penny.

Every time we went to our PCP, a specialist, or emergency, the only thing we had to pay for was parking and maybe a few bucks for pain meds. But each time we had to get pills it was less than $5 to fill the prescription. One of the kids fell and hit their head? Straight to the doctor. A cold that's been taking too long to go away on its own? To the doctor!

Now we are back in the US, and I just paid off another medical bill because my insurance only covered a small amount of an ECG, because they wanted to check make sure my kids heart was strong enough to put her on medication, and that the meds wouldn't kill her.

We should move to a single payer medical system.

The US healthcare system has provided me with lots of entertainment value via John Oliver's Last Week Tonight. I like it for that

For real though, despite being a software engineer who could find a very lucrative job in the US in a heartbeat, there's no way in hell I'll ever even remotely consider it, and the healthcare system is one of the reasons.

I'm just baffled. It seems unnecessarily cruel.

I'm a union autoworker, my health insurance is premium-free and covers pretty much whatever in exchange for a 25 dollar copay. We need stronger unions in this country. If you have a job, unionize it. The government has proven to be wholly ineffective at providing for the common good. They will never help you. Help yourself by unionizing your workplace.

Our son had a pseudo-croup attack, when he was about two. We have a number here in my country that you can call and they try to figure out your next steps. Since he was so young they pretty quickly told us to call an ambulance. Two paramedics came fairly quick and ordered an emergency doctor to the scene since they wanted to give him some medication they couldn't give him on their own.

We were a little apologetic because we weren't sure if calling them was warranted. But they were super nice and said we shouldn't worry, it was their job and they'd rather drive to cases like this, were things go well then the other way round.

We gave them our insurance card, they left, and everything was fine.

Never in the whole process have I thought, oh my, I hope this isn't going to cost too much. That is an awful thought. Our medical system here is far from perfect and I fear it's going to get worse but it gives me a piece of mind that I don't have to worry to go broke over it.

And the way families are insured really works well. You work and all your children and your partner (if they don't work) are insured through you. No changes in payment, no questions (apart from: are they earning any money) asked.

I didn't read the article, but I read your story, OP. Your situation sounds shitty. As a Canadian, we take our kid to the doc when we feel it's necessary. We live in a rural community and we don't have a family doctor, so that usually means a trip to the ER, but we consider the cost in time (ie, how many hours will I have I take off work), rather than money.

I think it would be fair to say that we take our kids to the doc too often. I'm not proud of that, but I'll happily pay taxes for other parents to do the same.

Having to think about price when your boy is having difficulty breathing sounds dystopian.

That story is horrific, I can't imagine living like that.

When I have a medical emergency (or even if it's just a possibility) then I go straight to the ER. I might have a small administration cost to pay, but it's easy enough to manage that I don't have to give it a second thought.

My job isn't linked to my healthcare, that sounds like insane leverage.

I can't believe governments and companies put such a "price" on people's health. I must say the news about the US Health System is also echoed by all the other US companies I have dealt with in my professional capacity. Profits before people and sales before outcomes.

I/We avoid using them when we can...

Honestly, I feel scared because it's actually something that is being exported here.

I feel so sorry for you Americans, but I don't blame you. I don't think this is something you can address by simply voting, the same way we here can't do nothing by voting in order to stop the privatization of everything. This are scary times.

When I need medical care, I go to the doctor, it is not a question about if I can afford it, I just go.

Back in 2019 I got sick like hell with mycoplasma, I was out of work for a month and a half, and even stayed two nights in hospital.

I never worried about my job, just focused on getting better.

At the end you do still have to pay here in Sweden, but in total, several doctors vists, two nights in hospital, antibiotics, food in hopsital and the medicine from the pharmacy cost me about the equivalent of 150USD.

So while not 100% free to me, I did not even once think about the cost.

We wonder if that could happen to our healthcare services and what steps we can take to prevent it.

"Voting out Tory scum" is about what I'm left with.

On 4chan /k/ a while back, an American ND'ed his gun into his hand and asked the board whether he should go to the hospital or not. It boggled my mind that he was having this conversation and I am from a 3rd world nation.

Why does your government not want a healthy work force? Healthy workers are more productive. Even with the right wing focus of your entire government, having healthy workers just feels like a no brainer.

I usually shrug and tell myself you could collectively fix it if you wanted to.

I'm Australian, I hate the way our government treats our healthcare system and continues to make decisions in favour of companies and to the detriment of the Australian people, but holy hell is our system better than in the US.

Each time I read an article like this I'm glad to live here. This is never a decision we would need to make, we wouldn't even question going to the ER in a case like this.

I'm getting the impression that a lot of foreigners think the American public generally supports the current healthcare system. We don't.

Complaining about our healthcare is practically a National pass time. We all want something better, but it's also one more problem in a burning pile of problems, which we have few tools to fix.

Some good news, is that we're making some small progress on that front. We're finally begging to rebuild our unions, which were dismantled decades ago, and the American public is becoming more politically engaged. Hopefully, these trends continuing a positive direction, and are resilient to being torn down again.

I do like that in my country, if there's an emergency, you don't need to think about it. You just get help without fear of being financially crippled for life.

I feel bad for Americans that you can't easily get medical help, even in emergencies.

Been in both the healthcare systems of the US and several European healthcare systems for many years.

I honestly don't know why Americans accept their healthcare system. It's insane. Everyone's worried about healthcare all the time. People pay excessively out of pocket for almost no coverage. And God forbid you get sick. Not only will you have to deal with the illness, you're also staring down a possible bankruptcy.

Edit: In Europe, you just go to the emergency room or the doc or the hospital. No need to look up anything. In most places you have a small healthcare ID card that you show when you check in. Many systems don't have any co-pays or deductibles. You just go and done. Some systems have a small co-pay for hospital stays or other services. In Germany, the co-pay for a hospital stay is €10 per day with a max of €280 per calendar year. In Denmark, there are no co-pays or deductibles for any healthcare service except dental. In Germany, most dental services are included without co-pays.

If you're an EU citizen and you need medical care in a different EU country than where you reside, you have a special EU health card that gives you the right to the same healthcare services as a citizen of the country where you are seeking treatment.

Man, I live in shit country where opposition is killed every february and ruling party of oligarchs have been destroying my country's healthcare system for last 20 years, but I'm glad commies built it tough.

I've heard you even pay for ambulance.

I saw a tiktok recently with an american explaining that people just don't finish the course of antibiotics so they have an emergency stash. FACEPALM.

American here, we have amassed more wealth than Rome at its peak, yet a disgusting number of our citizens live in third world conditions. Another disgusting amount of people live in relative comfort, but also in impossible debt that threatens them daily. They will be homeless soon, and they know it.

Our wealth inequality is worse than France before the Revolution, and it increases constantly. The wealthy don’t care. They just want more. They’ll burn the entire fucking planet to ash if it makes them a little more profit.

And Americans pay their utility bills with credit cards. And their grocery bills with credit cards. Their wages go to rent and booze/smoke to get by. Look at the mental health numbers in America and factor in the people worried about getting fired if they admit they’re struggling and ask for help. Factor in the ones who don’t have health insurance and can’t even ask for the help they need.

It’s a fucking nightmare here. And it’s getting worse every day. Trump is going to win for a reason.

First:

I think it was a wise thing with the activated charcoal. I think that you also did what was best in your situation.

I'd like to know other non-US citizen's opinions on your health care system are

A very bad opinion. The health care system is one if the greatest shames in your country (after racism and the adoration of excessive wealth).