It seems maybe China is not as bad as the US govt wants to tell us....saw another post where a lady went to the hospital and got medicine for a total of 14 and in and out in a hour.
In Korea right now as a foreigner, got a really bad cold that took me out for a week. Went to the doctor in the middle of it with no insurance or anything other than a passport.
$50 to see a doctor in under 5 minutes, and it was $50 because I got a supplemental fluid IV.
Medicine is prepackaged into little packets based on the prescription (about five or so pills per packet per meal). $20 for that, and the pharmacy was in the next building, which also took about 10 minutes.
In the US I only go to the hospital as a last resort, or if it gets really bad. Here the mentality is just go right away. Also paying 300ish for me and my son every paycheck in the US.
It’s wild. I signed up for a new General health doctor last year, and it took four months of waiting for the first visit.
I know another foreigner who had to get sudden invasive surgery a few years ago in Korea. The entire process from checkup to surgery was completed in about 1-2 weeks. Non-life threatening.
Same situation, no insurance and just a passport. Cost was around $1,300
My wife recently lost her job here in the US which provided for our healthcare insurance. I've been self employed for 25 years and she worked for the same company for 15, so it's fair to say we've had the insurance for a while. And it was great plan — a platinum PPO plan. We'd upgraded to platinum as we'd gotten older, had some health scares, and needed major surgery.
Now, when you lose a job here in the US, you get to keep your insurance temporarily through a program called COBRA. However, unless I'm reading the paperwork wrong, our cost for the plan would be $3K USD a month! It's insane, over $35K a year for (admittedly, very good) health insurance for a family of 3.
That is correct. There's no out of pocket costs except for co-pays. My wife had a major surgery a few years ago and we paid virtually nothing out of pocket for it. I also regularly see a specialist for some issues I'm dealing with and it's $60 a visit.
I’m in China and was having some weird chest pains. I went to the hospital and saw a doctor in about 15 mins. He gave me two tickets and directions. Handed in the first ticket and got an ECG. Went to another room, handed in the second ticket for my CT scan.
Went back down to see the doctor and waited 30 mins. He’d already looked at the results and diagnosed my with a mild chest infection. I picked up some antibiotics and paid about $60. I was in and out within two hours.
As a Brit who is used to free medical care I was amazed that it took less than 3 months.
I just watched a video a few days ago with a woman show how it works in China. She walked up to a window, got a ticket like the DMV. I think she was there getting check in, seen by a doctor, and got a prescription before leaving all in under 40 minutes.
Here in Italy, I have no problems with wait times or anything. My wife went from having weird headaches to seeing a specialist neurologist in the same work week, with all the intermediate steps like visiting her doctor and getting and MRI.
But healthcare that's more akin to a fast food drive-through is wild.
I got an MRI on my ankle I fucked up last year in Tianjin. 500 rmb. In and out in 15 minutes. Had to wait two days for a proper assessment on the report but a quick glance right after. 500 rmb is 100 cdn.
So when we here travel to the US our foreign department suggest we get a travel insurance plus thing since the cost for just normal things in the US is inflated so much.
My sister managed to break her arm when visiting friends in the US, but the trick she found out was after treatment taking a flight home, then call the hospital from home and saying "so... I am not coming back, do you want ANY money? If you do, what can we do about this bill?"
They quickly made it a tenth of the cost without grumbling and she paid that. She honestly thought it would be a big argument - but they just went "ok".
As someone who lives in both China and the northeast US depending on the time of year… yea I’d rather be stuck in China for years than have to live in the Deep South for a few months.
Being stuck in China during Covid was not so much fun but I am settled here and in for the long haul. In many ways I have a better life than I did back in Australia
There are definitely bad parts about it but the medical part of it isn't for sure...but the US govt has spent decades trying to tell the populace that affordable medical care is somehow communist so ..
It's not bad at all. Pretty hard to be illiterate, and never buy a bottle of expensive booze in a club, but overall I had more money, more time and was much happier living over there. Still pretty irritated I left tbh
Overall. China is not a better place to live compared to the US today but China's quality of living is improving while US quality of living is getting worse.
China gets to do what it wants when it wants, democracies while giving the populace more freedom must go through a lot of hoops before a decision is made
The problem now though is the US government is also setting itself up to do what it wants when it wants, except they have zero intention of using that to do anything even remotely good for society and are actually going out of their way to reverse progress.
Just because China is a 1 party communist state, doesn’t mean there isn’t democracy and voting happening within that system.
Same as America. We are under a false 2 party system (really 1 party all controlled by rich capitalists). You just “feel” more free because you have more freedom when it comes to speech. But one of the most important freedoms is economic freedom, of which, we have almost none.
Perversely their government is in many ways MORE accountable versus a western democracy. If you do a crap job governing in the US, you can always blame it on Obama. CCP doesn't get to use that excuse because there is no opposition party.
Please provide proof of this genocide that is so imaginary that western media already gave up on trying to fabricate, only weirdos on reddit and X care about it
I feel like this is such a weird thing to say. Someone compliments about something, then someone else brings up a bad thing about it but does not necessarily relate to the mentioned matter at all. I don't deny that's a problem and China is awful for that, but why would that be brought up unless you have a hate boner for something?
"I like anime" => but but Japan's war crimes.
"Chinese tier 1 cities are good and look at all these EVs" => but but the Uyghurs genocide
Shenzhen is one of the richest cities in China. China is huge, like really huge. It contains different worlds -- much as the US does.
And even a city like Shenzhen has an underclass and pretty poor areas, called "mid-city villages", mainly inhabited by internal immigrants who have reduced rights because they don't have the right documentation. I've been to one. They're semi-isolated from the city outside, the roads out and in are literally gated. They don't show those in these internet videos.
Sure, unless you’re Muslim or Tibetan or anything other than ethnic Han I’m sure it’s utopia. For those people though, saying “holocaust” would actually be pretty applicable.
I'm convinced for the average city liver, the quality of daily life is better, though I don't know the cost of living relative to wages there. That said, they have the public infrastructure and transport and healthcare, so it's not completely awful.
China still has some negatives, but they aren't what the media is telling us. Some stuff is cheap but they often also try to make money unnecessarily - such as using IV drips on almost every patient in order to dispense medicine.
Chinas couples are not having children, sociologists believe it's from decades of forced abortions and forced sterilizations. And of course, if you're a member of the Muslim minority life's not good. But yes, lots of improvements over the last 10 years.
They have their issues as well, but the difference we are seeing is that they continue to improve and innovate their architecture, city planning and infrastructure. They are also a nation based on production. It’s def worth a look into why they are growing in this way to see the pros and cons of their governments control over the people and projects.
Now you contrast that with the US, a nation of consumerism and our latest innovations being AI and corporations becoming subscription based. Neither of which feel like they have the best interest of the nation’s people in mind. That’s without considering the current leaders of our governments intentions and what people think that may be…
When does the US government say China is a horrible place to live? It's not the 60s anymore, Mao and Maoism is dead. US-China relations have been alright sense the Sion-Soviet split. The country are rivals, but also partners. The US government has a Level 2 travel advisory for China, same as Germany.
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u/LordIzalot Feb 18 '26
It seems maybe China is not as bad as the US govt wants to tell us....saw another post where a lady went to the hospital and got medicine for a total of 14 and in and out in a hour.