[cdoxsey]

The US has social safety nets.

Nearly half the federal budget is spent on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And there are numerous other programs: unemployment, housing assistance, snap, etc.

There are also state and local programs as well as private charities.

[uncletaco]

Social security and Medicare are both social safety nets that one cannot take advantage of while they're working in most cases, and everything else you've mentioned either requires a person to be in extreme poverty or severely disabled.

Meanwhile a healthy, young, gainfully employed person in France can take advantage of a wealth of social services and benefits.

Mentioning them the way you have requires a very uncharitable interpretation of the previous posters point.

[nsxwolf]

The American system sounds like what something called a “safety net” should provide. Why would someone actually need to use a safety net while they are healthy, young, and gainfully employed?

[RestlessMind]

> Meanwhile a healthy, young, gainfully employed person in France can take advantage of a wealth of social services and benefits.

If they have such an amazing welfare system, then why are the French perennially rioting[1]? And why do so many recent French presidents have abysmal approval ratings[2]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unr...

[2] Macron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_the_Emmanue...

Hollande: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Hollande#Approva...

Sarkozy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Nicolas_Sarkozy#...

[scarface74]

Unemployment insurance is state based and usually somewhere between $300 - $500 a week. The waiting list for housing assistance is years long in some places.

[adamsea]

We definitely have safety nets. Ours just cost more and give less.

To be fair we are also a much larger country with more diversity (especially of culture) than many countries with robust social safety nets.

Basically what I want to know is, if I don’t have health insurance through my employer, make $50K a year, and get cancer, what happens? I don’t know for sure but here in the US I’m guessing the answer would be mountains of debt.

[unishark]

> Basically what I want to know is, if I don’t have health insurance through my employer, make $50K a year, and get cancer, what happens? I don’t know for sure but here in the US I’m guessing the answer would be mountains of debt.

You must apply to a charity such as a catholic hospital that provides care for such cases. I know people with expensive conditions that have done this.

If it gets so bad that you become disabled, you can get social security.

If you run up a mountain of debt you can get rid of it (and your credit rating) via bankruptcy.