Comment on Paid Leave Olympics
BoredPanda@sh.itjust.works 3 months agoHealthcare is not free. I pay 250€/month here in Germany, and I literally cannot even access it at all. I go to the doctor and get turned away. They have this shitty two tiered system where unless you have the private insurance or are a pensioner, you have to fight against a thousand bureaucratic dragons to get any service out of it.
University is not free either. I paid 500€/semester and had to source my own food and accommodation. And although I got a degree, you cannot really compare, even the top of the top of German universities with places like MIT or Stanford where you get so much prestige and networking opportunities. One has to compare apples to apples.
I am for both universal healthcare and education, but Americans need to understand that you aren’t going to get the American service for the European price point.
I pay more than double that for my insurance, and they still deny care and determine which doctors I can see. I have to wait months to see specialists, and I have to spend $5,000 a year cash before insurance pays a dime.
And education at a public university can cost 10 grand a semester just for tuition. 500 euros wouldn’t cover a parking tag.
Stop lying. The majority of doctors here take public insurance and they dont turn you away when you have public insurance. You can even call your insurance and they help you get an appointment at a Facharzt.
Can’t speak for Germany, but can speak for your neighbors in Poland and Czech Republic to say that yes they do turn people away(or really say you need to wait X number of months which would be long after your condition is way worse), but you can pay just a bit more and go to a private clinic and be treated right away.
USA here. I like in one of the areas with the lowest cost to living in the USA (Kentucky). I just paid my daughter’s fall tuition to the University of Kentucky yesterday. It’s a state school which accepts 95% of those who apply. Average SAT ~1100. (My point, by no means is it a selective school.) Her tuition for one semester was $6851 or 6275 €. This does not include housing, food, or living expenses.
I don’t want to get into USA vs anyone else, as everyplace is different, with their own areas that make them stand out or not. However when it comes to post-secondary education and healthcare in terms of COST (not quality) the USA quantitatively lags well behind Western Europe.
This is becoming a fruitless discussion without getting into the specifics.
Here’s the thing, with my talent and experience, I could easily be earning 4x as much as I do here in Germany. I work in AI, it’s super hot right now. But here in Germany the only job for me is in the public sector, where I get paid like a lowly government employee. It’s completely ridiculous when compared to what my fellows in the US are earning. I earn around $45,000 of which I net $25,000 after taxes, of which $12,000 I pay in rent per year. And my benefits? A fixed two year contract. It’s not even a permanent position.
I have colleagues who decided to pay out of pocket some $120k to do an MSc. in California so they could access the tech network there and secure a job, and all of them are financially better off than I am.
Wow, cool that they had $120,000 just sitting around to pay for things. Almost sounds like they were already financially better off than you.
And rich enough already.
Thus will be such a fun fuck around find out for you my guy. Really enjoy it.
AI companies in the USA are located is super expensive areas, I always wonder if the quality of life is actually better for these types of jobs. There is also meta in Paris, Google in London, etc. have you considered that ?
If you’re a decent student you can do the governors scholar program and get a full ride for any in KY school. At least where I live in the Europe unis are much more selective than the US, many people don’t even go to highschool, and I know people in their 20s still trying to graduate.
You do realise a lot of places in Europe would lrefer you have a european uni degree over any american one. The systems are not the same.
Liz@midwest.social 3 months ago
I went to the cheapest public university I got into here in the US. An extremely standard university. I paid $10,000 per semester in tuition, not including books and fees. Do you really think American education is twenty times better?