Comment by shafyy
1 day ago
I don't know where the OP lives. But in Switzerland, where world-class univeristies like the ETH cost something like $ 1.5k a year in tuition, I'm pretty certain that people earn more on average than in the USA.
1 day ago
I don't know where the OP lives. But in Switzerland, where world-class univeristies like the ETH cost something like $ 1.5k a year in tuition, I'm pretty certain that people earn more on average than in the USA.
I live in Belgium, we earn quite a lot less on average indeed. However why would we need so much money? We can go to hospital, or even 20 times visit a dentist for that matter, without expensive insurance and without the fear of bankruptcy. We can have kids without fear of not being able to pay kintergarten.
FYI: Public kindergarten is 100% paid for by gov't across the US. I don't think any public schools in the US have tuition. (That said, there is no magical money. It is paid for by local taxes.) Where did you hear about this myth?
Also: In Belgium, can you really go to the dentist 20 times? Is there any good reason to allow this in a public healthcare system? If the barrier to entry for healthcare services is very low, then there must be (1) a lot of abuse... or (2) long waiting times... or (3) very high taxes. My guess in Belgium: A combination of (2) and (3).
Kindergarten means different things in different countries, and that's probably the source of confusion. In Europe, it usually means a program that gradually transitions from daycare to a proper pre-school as the kids get older. Starting ages vary, but it seems to be 2.5 years in Belgium.
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20 times is a bit exaggerated.
I estimate mostly [3]. That's the whole discussion here.
If you wear braces, you have to visit very frequently. Half the kids in secondary school get them at some point. If you have cavities, it's usually several visits.
Granted, it does not come for free but it will set you back hundreds rather than thousands a year.
Kindergarten is free in the US. Also the vast majority of people pay a relatively small amount of their income for health insurance (and of course it’s free for 65+ who are the primary consumers).
Kindergarten is preschool which means at least daycare, it's not free in the US , I think there's a confusion with elementary school, to which there's a public option. Also forgetting the fact there's no universal parent leave in the US compared with the very generous many months elsewhere, which also makes a huge difference to new parents. There's no possible comparison...
Americans earn more than Swiss people after taxes according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
Those numbers mean disposable household income divided by the square root of household size. American households are unusually large for a developed country, and measures like that overestimate individual incomes relative to countries with smaller households.
And after paying insurance?
To throw in a data point on this for reference, as an American I pay around ~$220 a month (~$2,640 per year) on health insurance through my job, this comes out of my pre-taxed income. While I won't get into specifics on the details of the terms, I am quite happy with it.
I work in Massachusetts, but I live in New Hampshire. I pay more than double this on both Social Security fees & Massachusetts income taxes, which are non-deductible since New Hampshire has no income tax and makes up for that with higher property taxes (housing is cheaper though). Filtered to just health related services I can easily identify, in total I pay for Social Security, Medicare, and indirectly Massachusett's state healthcare (which I can only gain access to under limited conditions). Of these, only the private insurance fee directly benefits me, and I have little faith social security will actually pay out when I reach the qualifying age.
In terms of investment my HSA, and 401k are a much better dollar for dollar investment for my future finances than any government service, so I find it extremely unlikely I would ever truly benefit from public healthcare.
Despite my tone here, I'm more annoyed than upset about this. Due to the overall societal benefit, I'm not entirely against public healthcare depending on the details, I'm just under no illusion that it would be to my benefit, and I'm not much of an outlier. I'm also mostly convinced the root issue here is the inflated cost of healthcare rather than just the insurance aspect, public healthcare naively implemented would likely turn into yet another government subsidy for hospitals to devour imo.
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Switzerland's system is the kind of system Obamacare was modeled after (i.e. requiring private health insurance, and providing subsidies to those who can't afford it).
No doubt, Switzerland's healthcare is cheaper (American doctors and hospitals are some of the most expensive in the world), but the data I linked to is already adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP).
Most American workers have subsidized insurance from their job.
But how about if I ask "And after paying for mortgage?"
1 reply →