True, but in 1990 being white and rich in the US was about as good as rich in Europe. Now it isn’t.
On the plus side: US Black outcomes are much better than in 1990. Even the B/W gap is smaller.
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I think that is actually a factor. Not because Europe doesn’t have “those people” ruining things, but because too many Americans are willing to sabotage and fight against public services if “those people” get to use it too.
We are so racist we figuratively would rather shoot ourselves in the foot than help everyone get ahead.
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Yup. The USA spends a higher amount in public expenditure than most similar countries.
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When my dad died, I moved from Chicago to rural Indiana to live in his house.
I’ve been accused at business meetings – I’m in finance, so it’s mostly Republicans with the usual prejudices – of moving to Indiana to avoid the high taxes in Illinois.
Technically, my taxes are lower in Indiana, but…I have to pay so much more to provide myself with the municipal services those taxes paid for, that my total costs are actually much higher here. And I’m thankful that my children are grown, so I don’t have to worry about their education.
Every analysis I have seen comparing taxes in the U.S. versus various European countries that accurately includes how much we have to pay extra for services – such as health care – they get as a matter of course agrees that in the end, our out-of-pocket costs are higher, even though we can claim our tax payments are technically lower.
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Yeah “taxed brutally”. But Europeans have a higher standard of living across income levels, their salaries tend to go further, lower level of debt, mandatory 6 weeks of paid vacation, don’t have to check their bank balance before they go to the ER…
Americans get an extra couple bucks in their paycheck, and pay a little bit less for that camera. But the trade off is when you have a kid you’ll owe at least 6 months salary to the hospital. Even if you have insurance.
It’s seemed to be they’re just getting a hell of a lot more for their money.
The thing I think is absolutely bonkers is politicians in Ireland trying to pitch improving healthcare over there as debate between emulating “American style health insurance” or copying the “the failing NHS”.
With people actually arguing the American approach is amazing, aping all the “sure it’s expensive but it’s the best” horse shit. As if everyone in the world can’t see us American throwing up indygogo pages so we can afford to not die.
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In Europe, if you are poor, you are still living in a First World Country. America sections off the poor into their own Third World Country with First World enclaves here and there.
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I’m going to stay in Canada. Life expectancy for both men and women in Canada exceeds US figures by 3 to 4 years. That damned socialized healthcare!
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It’s almost like your healthcare system is fundamentally broken by design /s
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You forgot about how America won both WWI & WWII, as well as the Cold War. Singlehandedly… and if it wasn’t for us, everyone in Europe would be subjects of the Kaiser/3rd Reich/Moscow.
While ignoring the multitudes of ‘those people’ making deadly journeys across the Med for the past few years…
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So maybe someone cares and it adds to the discussion, maybe not.
German health insurance system
Germany does not have a tax paid health care system. I am oversimplifying things but most of the population are in a kind of public health insurance (my translator gives me: “compulsory health insurance fund”) a “gesetzliche Krankenversicherung” GKV (literally: lawful sickness insurance).
When you are in a GKV you have everything paid for. There is no medically necessary treatment you won’t get no matter the cost. Years ago a politician wondered out loud if it is cost effective to pay for really old folks to still get really expensive treatments and he found himself in the center of a shitstorm (and rightfully so). You have to pay 5 € for many prescription drugs and you pay 10 € for every day in hospital (for the food I guess) but beside that there are no extra cost on anything that is medically necessary (there might be some exceptions I am no expert).
What costs the GKV?
The GKV cost the more the more you earn. It depends on your income. Half of the cost is paid by your employer and half by yourself. One could argue, that you pay the full price and that you’d get more money from your employer if they hadn’t to pay for their half but come on! You know how it would be if they would not have to pay for it.
If you have a low paying job you pay almost nothing for the GKV. I just used a calculator that said a 12’000 € job would cost you about 70 € (82 $) per month (your employer pays another 70 €).
There is a maximum amount you pay that is about 370 € (435 $) per month that you pay if you reach a certain wage (I think about 64’350 € - 75’778 $). So there is an upper limit.
Children are covered by your GKV for free as long as they are financially dependant on you (up to I think 27 years old)
If you are unemployed or a student without financial support of your parents, the state pays for your GKV.
I can’t stress that enough: The price ONLY depends on your income. There is no such thing as a pre-existing condition and there is no discrimination depending on how much you pay (your doctor won’t know). So the diabetic unemployed person with asthma gets the same treatment as the healthy rich investment banker (although he will probably be in the PKV…)
The private alternative for the rich: PKV
The GKV is not optional. You have to be in a GKV. Only if you are rather rich you can switch to a private health insurance (Private Krankenversicherung: PKV). You have to earn at least 64’350 € (75’778 $) a year to be allowed to switch to PKV.
Also, if you are a state official (policemen, some teachers, soldiers, politicians, some working in administrative positions and some others) you are in the PKV by default and the state pays half the cost. Also entrepreneurs and self-employed people are in the PKV.
The PKV is a controversial topic. Some left parties want to abolish the PKV and make everybody GKV. Doctors get more money from PKV patients that is why you often get quicker but not better treatment. The German version of a Karen is a PKV-patient demanding to skip the queue. Some doctors do that, others don’t. I have once heard of a doctor in a large city who had a normal waiting room for GKV patients and a fancy PKV waiting room with armchairs and cozy atmosphere. But that is an absolute rarity.
I am wealthy in Germany, I’d be poor in the US
If I had been an asshole (which I was not) I could have said: “I am earning well, I am young, I am healthy, in a different system I’d pay almost nothing for my health costs but now I am paying 350€ a month and actually I am paying 700 because my employer pays the other 350 I’d rather have for myself!” I never said that, but I could have when I was younger. I am an Automation engineer and I actually earn a decent amount of money and did so since I started working in my mid-twenties.
When I was 30 I was diagnosed with rheumathism. After some Shennanigans with finding the right medication and some really painful months I am now on a drug that makes my life completely normal. I give myself an injection once a week and as far as I am concerned my life is normal. I have no pain, I don’t recognize any side-effects. I can do sports, I can carry my children- no biggie. My doctors said that it might lose effectiveness one day but for now and the coming years I am fine.
Usually you don’t know what your prescription drugs cost (you pay 5€ no matter the price). My doctor told me how much it costs because it is exceptionally expensive: about 20’000 € a year (23’500 $). And that is German prices a quick google search revealed that in the US the drug is more expensive than in other countries (surprise surprise!). I am well off, not rich but I have a good salary, in the upper 10%. If I had to pay 20k out of my own pocket just for a drug that stops my life being in constant pain I would mainly work for my medication.
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I don’t know about brutal taxation. I pay around 20% Income Tax on about half of my income, so around 10%; plus another 12% in National Insurance, about 22% in total. Is that a lot by US standards?
And welcome aboard, comrade! It is always nice to see a new name pop up on deck.
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There have long been forces in conservative Canadian politics arguing for this as well. Especially in Alberta, where the debate about “two-tiered” healthcare goes back decades. Rich people want access to MRIs for their skinned knees like rich Americans have, but the rest of the population is like, “rich people getting better healthcare is against everything we stand for in this country”.
That said, those forces are slowly gaining ground and many provincial systems are slowly being eroded as resources are devoted to parallel private efforts. It’s still small right now, but some private clinics and such now exist, which would have been verboten (even in Alberta) 40 years ago.
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Nope, it isn’t. As someone who has spent half my life living and working in both the US and Canada, I can say with some authority that the notion that US taxes are so much lower than other places is an out-and-out myth. It’s a very persistent one, but it just ain’t true. It’s even less true when you factor in healthcare costs as lost income, which those armchair internet arguments never do. Americans pay out way more of their paychecks in taxes and combined healthcare costs than any other developed democracy.
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I, too, find the word “brutal” exaggerated, depending on your standards.
Again, I know about Germany, where if you are a low wage worker you pay almost no taxes. If you are rather wealthy you may pay up to 42% of your income (not including health insurance) for an income of 57’919 € (68’000 $) per year as a non-married person without children (not to go to much into details, having children and being married to someone who earns less than you increases your limit for when you pay maximum tax).
It is a progressive income tax, for an income below 9’408 € (as a single without children) you don’t pay any income tax at all.
When researching this comment I found out that there is a so called “rich tax” of another 3% starting at an annual income of 274’613 € (320k$) for unmarried people without offspring.
In nordic countries the top income tax is even higher, up to 56%.
But for all these countries, to reach the top income tax you have to be in the top income bracket. A comedian once put it that way: “Doctors are always complaining about the top income tax rate being too high or that they are not reaching it anymore.”
I found this chart that shows your tax rate in Germany compared to your income:
taxes in Germany
It is unfortunately 5 years old, so be aware that this will have changed but it is sufficient as a guideline for illustration.
The average income for Germany is 47.700 € per year which makes the average income tax rate 23.30%.
If anything I wrote is similar or identical in the US, I did not want to insinuate it was different. I don’t really know how the US tax system works.
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Not neccisarily. Very wealthy people and massive businesses often pay less tax, or no tax at all in the US.
Otherwise you’re talking a couple percentage points difference, and then the existence of VAT or national level sales tax. VAT is humanity’s greatest evil when Americans start bitching about taxes in other countries.
Roughly speaking. But our income tax is not graduated as a progressive tax in anything but the roughest way. Assorted other features of the tax system often mean that the more you make the lower the effective rate you pay is, even if the statutory rate is higher. And the situation for taxes on business is completely different.
But in the end the mean paid tax rate here is something like 24% for individuals.
It looks lower here if you carefully ignore State level income tax, the mean Federal tax rate is like 14%. And like I said for the wealthy it is really much much lower than in other nations.
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in a common sense manner to pay for the living in an actually civilized society…
FTFY.
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Not at all. Looking at a recent paycheck, if I lump all the taxes together (they like to break them out into categories, maybe to make it look like less?) my effective tax rate is right around 30%. This includes zero money for my health insurance, which, since I work for a small employer, I buy on my own.
And we have crappy public transportation, so basically everyone outside the cities needs a car, which equates to at least $2k/year, at least.
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The more I hear about the place, the happier I feel to have not been born American. I mean, where I live has a totally fucked up record on many matters; but Health Care isn’t, currently, one of them. I’m sure that the Tories plan to change that in the interests of “greater choice”.
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US has a lot of loopholes for the Uber-rich. For everyone else it’s high tax low reward with a lot of grift. But if people hear a lie enough they start to believe it. And we have all been hearing 50 or more years of lying on that matter.
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Yeah. I feel lucky to have grown up where and when I grew up, but it feels like the fight to keep everything from going to hell is wearing my generation down.
And @Paul_S’s comments about Germany reminded me that here, even when I was in college and living on around $6k per year (early oughts, for reference) I still ended up owing income taxes!
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