Well then, consider this: If you travel to the US and are under luxembourgish healthcare, you have to get a special healthcare insurance only for traveling to the US. What's so special about it? It stipulates that if you get sick and/or injured, the Luxembourg Air Rescue could send a medical plane over to pick you up and get your treatment in there and then then the follow-up in Luxembourg, with all the costs (including the flight and accommodation you booked) taken over by the CNS, the luxembourgish healthcare agency. Because no matter how good the care is, it's just not worth the outlandish prices in the US, and it's cheaper for our healthcare service to send a medical plane to pick you up than to cover for your treatment in the US, which is in most cases pretty much exactly the same as one would get in Luxembourg or other countries in western/northern Europe.

Also, while affordability is a factor, it's not the biggest one. It is what costs the US a good position, though. And I say good and not top on purpose, because even with the costs being taken out of the equation, getting into the top 10 would still have been very hard considering there's quite a gap to fill, and it's certainly not all due to the pricetag.

Just as a comparison with the luxembourgish healthcare, which gets run 100% by how much gets paid in by the employees, which is 3.25% of the monthly wage (for those used to yearly wages, in case of a 60k salary you'd pay $162.50 per month for the healthcare, much cheaper than most premiums I saw in the US lately). Our healthcare had only 3 times run a deficit since 2000 (2008, 2009 and 2017; the coronavirus tests and vaccines are directly done by the health ministry, otherwise 2020 and 2021 more than likely would also had a deficit) despite giving much better coverage and cheaper prices than in the US.

And while there was an increase in the amount of the wage that goes to healthcare in 2013, it was only raised from 3.20% to 3.25%, so a 0.05% increase that maybe cost us an Euro or two more per month.

I wasn't comparing to other countries. Just making a point about how its being run poorly here due to fear of raising taxes.

I am not opposed to all safety nets and I already stressed life saving care that bankrupts people should be among the first thing we socialize from a payment concern.

No. I think excessive eating and poor choices throughout the day are much more destructive to the human body than fad diets.

The American health system doesn't really push anything. Especially after realizing the food pyramid was trash. At best they just recommend to avoid obviously shit food.

I personally tell fatties intermittent fasting is the answer. You can eat junk, shit like a champ and lose weight. But nobody listens to me.

Fasting in order to eat junk food, AKA, the Roy Orbison diet, is just another extremely unhealthy practice.

You’ll want to eat much more nutrient dense food when fasting, not just empty macros. You’re giving people advice that will be cause malnutrition. In Roy Orbison’s case, dietary health issues lead to an early death.

It almost seems like the US wants health issues in its population to create customers for the healthcare industry. If health is really something you want to improve, mitigation of health issues should be a major goal: add a nutrition course to avoid a country filled with sham diets doing more and more damage to unwitting peoples’ bodies.

Honestly, that sentence could be used in pretty much any context, the Biden administration is doing very little of anything important, it feels like he's treating his presidency as kind of a "buffer" term after the Trump debacle. Seems like kind of a waste of the Democratic majority, but whatever.

I live in a country where most of healthcare is not free per se, but the government covers most of the cost of hospital visits/medication. I once had to call an ambulance, which was free. Then I was taken to an emergency appointment which cost me €5, and the doctor prescribed me a medication that costs €8 per box (each one lasting two months). And to be honest, that's one of the most expensive medications I've ever had to buy here, most prescribed medication costs less than €5 per box. I have an SOS medication that cost me €1.5, I bought it half a year ago and I still haven't even had to take half of the pills.

And all of those medications are branded, if you want to buy the generic version they're even cheaper. That €8 drug has a €3 generic version.

Overall, the US-American healthcare system (or lack thereof) is pathetic for a developed country. You shouldn't be afraid of going bankrupt because you got sick. You should never not call an ambulance because you don't have the means to pay for it. But then again, everyone with half a brain cell knows that. But now healthcare companies got too big for even the government to be able to oppose them so I don't expect any significant change anytime soon.

Curious as to why you had to be privately insured in a country like Germany? 

I know some have private insurance here in the UK but it just means it's one for them to access health services faster as the public sector is naturally strained. However, Boris expanded spendings accelerated hiring of foreign doctors and nurses to unprecedent degrees, so in a decade or so (once those doctors finish their training), the private insurance will be less enticing? maybe. 

But yeah, curious to hear your take.

Americans stunned by Non-Americans taxes.

Source from 2018: https://www.businessinsider.com/tax-rates-take-home-salaries-40-countries-2018-5

USA:
Practical tax rate: 18%
Average pre-tax salary: $64,154
Average post-tax salary: $52,344

Most of the countries on this list of 40 have considerably lower average salaries too, other than Australia, Switzerland, Ireland, and Denmark. Yeah our medical bills in USA can be ridiculously high (if you don't have a good or platinum level insurance plan, which many of us do), but the amount going into our bank account each week is a lot higher than the vast majority of first world nations.

We civil servants in Germany have a special status that's not comparable to any other country. We have reduced constitutional rights compared to other workers but also benefits in other areas.

One benefit is that we don't have to pay social security contributions for unemployment (because we generally can't be laid off) or pension scheme (because we get a special kind of state pension). Furthermore, the state pays for 50% (70% if you have at least two children) of our health insurance. So we only have to cover the remaining 50% (or 30%). We then have the option to choose between private or public health insurance (most people in the private sector can't choose because they must earn high wages in order to be able to get into private health insurance). Most of the time, private health insurance is beneficial to us, as the monthly rates are based on your individual state of health (and age) and not as a percentage of your income.

This is a stereotypical upper middle class reasoning. Upper middle class and upper classes USA citizens have higher income than Europeans or East Asians, while the lower income classes struggle because the lack of public services and welfare