[akhosravian]

The idea that it costs nothing somehow is bizarre.

If you divide the NHS budget for 2024 (192 billion) by the UK population (67 million) you’ll find it works out to just under 3000 pounds per person just for 2024.

Assuming your wife’s visit was this year your family paid about 3x what the poster you are responding to did.

I’m also working from the assumption most posters here are in high tax brackets; I understand tech jobs in Europe pay much worse than the US so that may not be true.

[cnewey]

I think you're glossing over a few details here which - although understandable - deserve a little clarification.

The poster is referring to cost at the point of care - which under the UK's NHS model is £0. The "£3000" per year should really be viewed as the cost of an insurance policy (in fact, NHS funding comes from a progressive tax called National Insurance - at least in theory). This "£3,000" on average then compares to the average cost per person of a health insurance policy in the US of around $7,700 [0] - plus of course in the USA you generally have point-of-care costs too.

Additionally tax by its nature in the UK is progressive and the income distribution is fairly heavy-tailed, so it's not really a cost of "just under £3,000pp" - the average citizen pays far less than that, and even most high earners will pay less. For example someone on £100,000 (top 1-2% of salaries in UK) will pay just over £4,000 in NI [1] - but NI funds more than just the NHS and also funds social care and state benefits.

Of course in the UK some people choose to supplement NHS care with some form of private insurance - either paid for privately (uncommon) or provided as an in-kind benefit through an employer (still not ubiquitous but recently more common). Private care is typically used for things like skipping waiting lists for certain treatments or access to alternative care not offered by the NHS.

These private policies tend to have a lot less coverage than the NHS, so I would say aren't directly comparable to the NHS - nor are they generally totally adequate as standalone insurance policy so aren't comparable to an insurance policy in the US either.

The model is just very different in the UK and the US, and it's hard to compare them directly. However, what is inarguable is that the NHS provides very good value for money, especially when compared with other G7 nations [2] - on average less than half of the expenditure per capita of the US.

[0]: https://www.william-russell.com/blog/health-insurance-usa-co...

[1]: https://www.which.co.uk/money/tax/tax-calculators/national-i...

[2]: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/health-spending.html

[ghaff]

And people I know in the uk, at least those working for large US companies, also have private insurance in addition to NHS.

Probably not a bad idea to get travel insurance if vacationing in the US. The other way around you may want some sort of additional insurance if traveling from the US to Europe.