I was telling my dad that in most of the world you don't have to pay for healthcare OR school and in some cases pension and my older brother immediately runs out (American Nationalist has entered the chat) and starts bleating about how none of that is true
This directly contradicts my experience with people I've known from the EU who paid fuck all for braces, healthcare, school, etc but he will always say "I know people from there" (which I'm assuming is a bunch of right wing shitheels from 4chan with a boner for the USA and unironic Ukrainians) but I get the feeling he is full of shit
he always tells me "mental health is cheap/free in the USA" when he bludgeons me with that and this also directly contradicts my experience of being told that my dads insurance only covers 4 sessions of therapy and that the copay will be $225 dollars an hour when I was 12
what the hell is the truth lmao
The EU is not homogeneous. Precisely what is covered under health care varies from nation to nation. In Canada, life-saving medical procedures and doctor's visits are free, but medications, dental, and vision are not. The EU is a similar mixed bag, with some nations gradually privatizing their health care systems. You can probably dig up someone from anywhere who'll come with a story about how their state-provided health care failed at some point.
You can't construct a worldview dependant entirely on anecdotes.
I know a little about my homecountry in Eastern Europe, and a little about my adoptive country in Northern. So up here North there is a socialised healthcare, in the sense that going to the doctor is absolutely free, and most procedures are mostly free. Treatment at the doctors is also free. For some things you have to pay some amount, like some surgeries, and you have to buy your medication too, but that is usually subsidized for a considerable amount. The downside, is that, as everywhere, we have people that are trying to strangle the medical system, and that means that sometimes you have to wait for a long time for some procedures like some surgeries. And there are doctors that have the mentality of not giving too much to their patients. Another downside is that some types of healthcare is very difficult to get - i.e. if you want to go on HRT there is ONE center in the entire country and it operates under somewhat outdated protocols. Which means it will take anywhere between 1-2 years to get HRT and then it will likely be lower dosages.
Dental care is almost completely privatised. And costs A LOT. For the money I would pay for one crown I can go back to my home country, stay at a resort and have all of my teeth fixed.
Education, as an EU citizen is free. You can even get government subsidies to help pay the bills.
Back in Eastern Euope we used to have a fully socialized healthcare too. For a poor nation in the Warsaw pact it used to be pretty good. After 1990, it got mostly privatised, even though some form of government insurance remained. Over time most government hospitals grew dilapidated and services increased in costs, or simply became unavailable. The whole thing became absolutely gutted. Education up to university is free. Most children go to private kindergarten. Universities are two types - government, where you pay a nominal fee (like a 100 USD/year) and private ones go a little bit more expensive. My masters degree was about a 1000USD, my bachelor was something like 250 USD per semester. I think the prices now are a little higher.
In Australia we pay a certain percentage of our taxes to Medicare. We also have a private health system.
The Public System covers GP visits, public hospital stays, essential operations and just all the "Serious" healthcare you'll need. You might be put in a 4 person ward with 1 TV, but you'll not pay for it. There's also heavy subsidies for drugs and income assistance for disabilities via the NDIS. All citizens are also entitled to 10 or more free psych visits per year.
What the public system doesn't cover, the complete cost of medicine (though for very expensive drugs this is a fairly token cost), Fancy accommodations, semi-medical things like glasses.
Most seriously it does not cover dentistry, though public clinics exist they generally have at least an 18-month waiting list. Due to the link between dental and heart health outcomes becoming clearer there's now a push to cover it too.
Ambulances are, technically, not covered, but I've never seen them follow up on someone who couldn't pay the 100-200AUD
The Private System is kind of dodgy but fills in the gaps. Nicer hospitals, free Ambulance, glasses, quicker doctors visits in rural areas, private specialists. Not really worth it tbh
The costs you do pay, however, are much, much cheaper than the US system. I went to the dentist without private insurance and it cost $3k (2K USD) for very (very) extensive work that looking at US prices would have been at least 20K USD uninsured.
Still a lot, enough to break poorer people, but you can at least try to dig yourself out of a few K of debt, especially as we have a stricter lending system and medical providers are required to allow for financial hardship.
It's not perfect, there's shitty holes that are horribly inhumane, and even if it's all free our unemployment system is so cruel taking 3 months off for chemo can be financially crippling. Remote regions are severely lacking at times, even with services like the Flying Doctors.
But for all that in general I know when I really need care I can walk into a doctor or hospital and I will be treated as soon as possible, and there will likely be no bill, and if there is it will be a hundred bucks or so.
In the UK heath care is still public, no cost for seeing doctors, ambulances, going to hospital, surgeries or staying in hospital etc. Mental health is also free though can be a pain to access as the system has never had much investment.
Dental is a mixed bag, very subsidised but still some costs, check up and xrays etc are capped at £24, fillings or root canals etc £60, crowns dentures or other complex stuff £280, you will have to pay private for more cosmetic based stuff though.
University is now fairly expensive here at £9000 per year. It used to be free, then charged but still cheap but in 2012 it went up to it's current price. It's one of the more obvious effects of the slow degradation of most social democracies into laissez faire capitalism.
You're basically right, but these countries you're referring to are mostly capitalist, and as such in a constant struggle between workers and capital about how much is public vs private and how well-funded the public is. Think the US and schooling.
So it's a mixed bag. Some are pretty good in certain ways, most are better than the US, but most also struggle to deliver adequate universal health care and post-secondary education for free at the amounts required by the country because capital is always using their powerful tools to undermine these efforts.
To fill these gaps countries introduce all sorts of measures that kind of suck, like tiered health care based on your wealth, or the public system only covers certain things and others you need benefits from work, specialists are free but the wait times are long, or post-secondary is free but there are limited spots, etc.
The degree to which these programs are as good as you're imagining tends to correlate with the degree of class consciousness in the country, but even then if they're not revolutionary they are always under threat of capital strike/flight.
Tl;Dr: you're generally right, but your brother can likely point to accurate examples weaknesses or shortcomings of these systems if he is keyed in. These aren't arguments against public funding though, but arguments for dismantling the ownership class entirely.
In S.Korea they've got national health insurance. Hospitals are private, and you can get private health insurance on top if you want. Most things are very very cheap compared to American prices, but some comparable. I recently got my teeth checked and did some scaling too. It cost me about $13. I bought two covid tests today. You can buy rapid ones at the pharmacy or convenient stores for $6, but you can get a free PCR at the health centre, but it's a long wait because things are getting out of hand. Having kids in Korea costed about $1000, if you reserved a private room, plus a week in the post natal care centre. I
in most of the world you don’t have to pay for healthcare OR school and in some cases pension
In my country, you are required to have health insurance. The insurance companies are privately owned. iirc. Depending on income, your health insurance costs are subsidized. I pay my insurance around 160 euros a month and I get a subsidy of 112 euros. We don't pay at the doctor's office or hospital, but up until 315 euros a year we have to pay out of pocket. Dental care is fully privatized.
Student loans used to be forgiven once you graduated, now it's just a low interest loan from the government that you have to pay off.
Pensions are paid from your income.
Bernie is talking like Europe is some healthcare utopia, but it really is more nuanced than that. Sure, our system is more affordable, definitely.
In South Africa public healthcare payment is based on a sliding scale depending on how much you earn. People that are unemployed, pensioners or earn below a certain amount don't pay anything. As far a I know, there are four or five payment tiers. The highest tier is medical aid rates (this will make sense later). However they'll treat you no matter if you can afford the bull or mot. Unfortunately public hospitals can't really help with certain very specialised things things as they need to hire/contact specialists externally and some specialists do not go into a lot of public hospitals anymore as they do not feel that the infrastructure is good enough to carry out very specialised procedures. So they are exclusively in the private healthcare space. But that's only a problem for less than 1% of people if I'd have to guess, a lot of specialists still work in the public space.
In private healthcare, it's very expensive (still cheap compared to the USA of course). Generally, unless you have a ton of cash, you need a medical aid (kind of like health insurance) to access private care. Standard of care is generally higher (not always).
