Assuming it's not high income but a real scrounger, this is leaving out way too much. Out of pocket health insurance will easily quadruple that number. Utilities could too, depending.
For the other 20 percent, it’s best to go to a private clinic, where the care is as good if not better than many US clinics but at 10-20 percent of the cost.
And the private clinics are not subsidized.
My wife just got an MRI at a private, fully for profit imaging clinic. The total cost was $217 USD for a study with and without contrast on a 2023 Siemens scanner. Labs for the contrast approval were $6.
What people pay in the USA is in no way justified by equipment or facility costs. Runaway liability and profiteering, perhaps. But not because of the “quality” of the healthcare or the equipment.
But I don't really buy the argument that healthcare quality is the same elsewhere. Like, do you really think you're going to get the same care for, say, long term multiple sclerosis in the United States versus Guatemala? I feel a lot of the "the care is the same" comes from younger people who have had relatively easy interactions with the healthcare system. When you're over 70 it's a totally different ball game.
US healthcare is extremely high quality and timely if you can pay for it unlike the crap "free" Canadian "healthcare" I used to have with 12 month wait times for procedures and 50%+ marginal tax rates.
You have two elements in healthcare , for the most part: expertise, starting with basic medical education, then gained by reading and being exposed to patients, going to conferences and other experiential factors. People are ill, injured, or old everywhere, so this opportunity is well distributed.
Apart from that, you have technology, and people with money pay to have access to it, and people with money are also everywhere, so that too tends to be distributed.
There are also a lot more doctors per person in many developing nations, because education of doctors tends to be highly subsidized in those countries. You get a lot more of a doctors time and focused attention with your consult.
It’s when things are rare that it can be harder, but even then, sometimes the leading specialists start out off the beaten path.
no, its more like, what if you lived in a country where you were forced to buy a mercedes or die of starvation, regardless of your socioeconomic status.
I dont doubt that Canadian healthcare is deeply broken, considering its close proximity to the US system, leading to extreme pressure from perverse incentives.
I have spent the last two decades living in developing nations in Latin America, and I can say I have been very pleasantly surprised.
Where I am right now, The public systems cover 80 percent of what people need at no cost with government hospitals and clinics. Any community >200 people will have a clinic, and any reasonable town of a few thousand will have a hospital. There are government Pharmacies that distribute most common medications for roughly 25% of the standard (very low) pharmacy price.
Alongside this is a thriving system of private pharmacies and "clinics" Often, these are fully equipped hospitals, with trauma centers, cardiac units, the works.
One of the nearby ones, for example, consists of seven towers and many other buildings over several city blocks and includes hundreds of specialist practices, three separate hospitals, two imaging centers, etc. All fully for profit and privately held.
The cost at the clinics is typically about 10% - 20% of US cost, and includes the use of new, state of the art equipment from Siemens, GE Medical, etc.
Very good health insurance coverage for me, a 60 year old man, runs a little under $100usd a month, and covers 90-100 percent, including a reasonable allowance for vision and dental.
This is not a wealthy country, and the general tax rate paid by most people is a 20% sales tax on non-essential items, roughly 20% import tax on luxury goods and personal vehicles, a fairly high fuel tax for road use. There are other taxes for top 1% earners and corporate taxes, but they are not onerous.
The public and private system is thriving, and is becoming a hotspot for healthcare tourism for the USA and Canada.
Naked Greed is not the only way forward, and private / public hybrid systems can thrive side by side.
Its worth mentioning that the government provided insurance, typically extended mostly to mothers and children, is also pretty good, covering 100 percent, but each usage requires an approval process that may take several days. Anything else, you go to the hospital where they will provide primary care / stabilization if it is a complex situation requiring ongoing care.
On the government side, there is a clear priority towards care that can result in good outcomes. Pallitive care and diseases that inevitably result in near-term death are deprioritised under the public systems, and private insurance or families pick up the tab on those kinds of things.