This one thing keeps me from moving to US. Here in Europe I can pay about $50 for a set of 10 allergy tests (if I go to a private clinic).
I pay about $10 per month for a national health insurance for my whole family (I pay much more, but most of that is deductible from income tax - so when I calculated how much money would I have if I wouldn't pay this, it was $10).
As my wife is sick, she needed some special treatment. For the first days in hospital she got antibiotics, 4 times a day, $300 per injection. I payed nothing. Then she got some more drugs, sometimes a box for 5 days was worth about $3k - I payed nothing.
When our kids were born and spent the first 6 weeks in hospital on an ICU, the cost was about $150 - I payed nothing. When they had to get a special medicine for $4k - I payed nothing.
And yes, my taxes are a little bit higher than in US, but come on, I'd go bankrupt if I had to pay for all that. Or rather: I wouldn't pay, I'd live on street, and we would be dead now.
Even with lower taxes I'm sure we more than make up for it with the cost of health insurance. I have the cheapest option available to me (working at a company of ~1000), and pay $500/mo out of pocket for health insurance.
At my previous job, I paid $1100(!!!) per month for health insurance out of pocket.
Note that these numbers are family rates, not individual.
That is the one thing that keeps you from moving to the US? Granted, it is a pretty big problem, but I'd say it is far from being the only thing the US gets wrong that the EU generally gets right.
This is The Thing. The list is much longer. On the other hand there are many problems that are worse here as well. But for me the main thing is that in US people are dying or lose everything just because someone in the family got sick. This is sick!
Long prison sentences for non-violent crimes also ruin lives. Police indiscriminately killing unarmed citizens because they are armed and trained to shoot first also ruins lives. Non-existent support for mental health problems also ruins lives. Major homeless problems in all major cities with no long term solutions also ruins lives. Shall I go on?
Those are probably issues that are mostly irrelevant to both the parent poster and the discussion at hand.
It seems doubtful this family man would move to the US and immediately become a homeless, mentally ill victim of police violence.
Everyone agrees the US has plenty of issues (and there's plenty of homeless in Europe too), but you're replying to someone mentioning his personal reasons and telling him a laundry list of other issues that America has.
Not the OP, but this is a Big Thing for me too (and I'm from Uruguay). I am aware of a lot of other differences, but I don't see that many other things that I'd care about.
And I've been to middle-of-nowhere, USA and have family there so I know it's not a bed of roses, but you also don't fully realize how good you have it in many other ways.
I pay about $10 per month for a national health insurance for my whole family (I pay much more, but most of that is deductible from income tax - so when I calculated how much money would I have if I wouldn't pay this, it was $10).
As my wife is sick, she needed some special treatment. For the first days in hospital she got antibiotics, 4 times a day, $300 per injection. I payed nothing. Then she got some more drugs, sometimes a box for 5 days was worth about $3k - I payed nothing.
When our kids were born and spent the first 6 weeks in hospital on an ICU, the cost was about $150 - I payed nothing. When they had to get a special medicine for $4k - I payed nothing.
And yes, my taxes are a little bit higher than in US, but come on, I'd go bankrupt if I had to pay for all that. Or rather: I wouldn't pay, I'd live on street, and we would be dead now.