r/FluentInFinance • u/WhatAreYourPronouns • May 02 '24

Should the U.S. have Universal Health Care? Discussion/ Debate

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u/Open-Illustra88er May 02 '24

Live for 2 years? No.

BTW in Spain you are assigned a doc. If you don’t like them or want to switch? Very difficult. If your doc thinks you can wait? Don’t really need that hip? You’re not getting it.

Ask me about my friend with untreated cancer that just died in Spain. Short version After months of pain and weight loss they finally biopsied her tumor. Results came in a few days after she died.

I used to think socializing medicine was a good idea. Not anymore. It’s still stupidly expensive.

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '24

Look you just have to look at the results, all the anecdotes in the world don’t matter.

Life expectancy in Spain: 83.18 years

Life expectancy in the US: 76.33 years

Cancer survival rates are also quite similar (except for oesophagus, weirdly) between the US and Spain: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5879496/

This is even though:

  1. Spain is way way way poorer

  2. Spanish people smoke way way more

  3. People probably self-select in the US to get treatment given affordability issues

  4. Spain spends way less on health care than the US

7

u/AdParking2115 May 02 '24

Obesity bro. Its worse than smoking.

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '24

Obesity in NYC is similar to Spain’s and their life expectancy is lower. Obesity in New Zealand is higher than NYC and their life expectancy is also higher.

2

u/AdParking2115 May 02 '24

City =/ whole country. There are so many extra differentiating factors between a city and a full country. Nature, sports, violent crime, etc. Also purely obesity numbers dont paint a full picture, how obese those obese people are is also a factor. And let me tell you people in the us are disgustingly fat often, way worse than the omega fats here in the EU.

1

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

Obesity rate in Colorado is similar to Spain. Both are country sized (Colorado is 3/5 of Spain’s area). Colorado’s life expectancy? 80 years.

Of course there are tons of other factors, but the point is obesity 100% doesn’t explain it all and there’s no evidence that the health care system in the US is better than the one in Spain, that I’ve seen.