Im a vegan anyway, don’t buy all of this stuff. Y’all can eat all you like.

Just looked it up and apparently the life expectancy here in Australia is 5 years higher than for the US, and that's despite the fact that 2/3 of us here are overweight and we have a huge culture of binge drinking.

Can't stand most sweets nowadays tbh, the sheer quantity of sugar is insane.

I mostly quit soft drinks years ago and only rarely eat junk food, I used to be 14kg (31 lbs) overweight by the time I finished University back in the day due to the amount of crap I was eating. Doing much better now thankfully.

Americans are in God awful physical shape. Cracks me up when most everyone blames our system for expensive Healthcare while nobody wants to admit being healthy is the best way to reduce costs. It would be like getting drunk and playing bumper cars daily on the motorway and wondering why car insurance is expensive.

Car accidents and suicide are 2 of the 3 leading causes of death for men my age Down Under, so all I have to do is take the train/walk and not off myself and my chances of survival skyrocket.

You also need to understand that the truly terrible American food is banned(or modified) from being imported to the EU as it doesn’t meet basic food safety standards. So, the ones you’re talking about are on the higher end of their output.

Why is it like that? Because America is a corporate state and arguing for consumer rights will get you branded a communist.

Speaking of healthcare, I fucking love having universal healthcare; I might well be dead without it, as when I got cancer in 2020 all my treatment was paid for my medicare.

I am not a fan personally.  The US system isn't as expensive as people make it out to be.  It is founded in a shared risk system, similar to Universal.  The difference is Universal is paid via taxes, while employment pays for the US's shared risk plan.  The max out of pocket, on average, is 4-5k.  Nobody in the US is paying hundreds of thousands, that is a BS myth (not directed at you) that the media has created.  The other point is, when I lived in Europe with Universal, waiting times for a specialist was 6 to 9 months.  In the US, yeah it costs me 4k, but I could see someone in a week.  

Meh. When I was on the health insurance plan with my mother's workplace the yearly deductible was $10,000 15 years ago. Which is a far more massive tax than the health insurance tax from universal in many countries. Of course I am not unhealthy so I actually paid $0, but for the more prone to health issues, over 10 years that would be $100,000.

For a family, yes.  Take 5k and times by 2, get 10k.  And that 10k is likely max out of pocket, not deductible. 

And my experience with universal was pay a ton in taxes and wait half a year before seeing a doctor.  Not impressed.  

Edit

100k earner in the US takes home 79k.  In the UK 72k.  Germany 62k...  guess what, I just paid for my healthcare max out of pocket.  

*rough numbers because it depends on credits, deductions, source of income, etc.  Obviously various from person to person.  

Point being, nothing is free.  It is being paid for, just different routes.  And the largest point, for the US, is healthcare will continue to raise in costs as people continue to be unhealthy.  Health needs to be part of healthcare.

Disposable Income by Country 2026

It was sadly 10k deductible per person per year. Maybe it has improved in the past 15 years, but I haven't been back enough to check in the past 7 years.