3 ms·

For an example of the top of my head, take tax returns. In the UK the vast majority of people don't need to file one—your employer deducts the right amount each

For an example of the top of my head, take tax returns. In the UK the vast majority of people don't need to file one—your employer deducts the right amount each month from your salary and off you go. Moving to America I found I had to spend at least half a dozen hours trying to figure out what I had to do, eventually giving up and paying for a service to do it for me and am still unsure I filed correctly. For another example, take getting a driver's license. In the UK you fill in a form online, they extract any other relevant details from your passport records and put in your credit card details and they send you a license within the week. It's a 15 minute process. In America I got to finding out I had to go to the DMV (and that I should go to the DMV in another city because it's somehow superior) and promptly gave up. I know you said aside from healthcare, but even if you had the hypothetical best insurance available, with no co-pay or deductible, just keeping track of all of the arcane and opaque numbers, policies and restrictions is a huge administrative burden. Now to be clear, I understand why some of these systems are the way they are and, in some cases, can see the necessity, but the fact remains that in almost any other developed nation there simply wouldn't be an equivalent administrative burden to just existing.

vacri 10y ago
Talk to an accountant with experience in dealing with tax both inside and outside the US, and watch them wither before your eyes when they describe the cacophony of the US taxation system. You gotta love a taxation system where everything changes depending on where something is sold versus where something is received versus where head office is, varying right down to the county level... Most of the reason why Americans get so frothy about tax is because they've made it ridiculously complex to comply with.
- timthelion 10y ago
  Really. In the Czech Republic the tax form for physical persons is a single A3 sheet folded in half, and one quarter of it is notes.
Clubber 10y ago
You've accidentally hit on a problem with much of the complexity of laws in the US: states have autonomy on a lot of things. Healthcare is a big one. It's regulated by the states. Insurance companies incorporate by state. Each state has it's own regulations. Some states are gun friendly, some are not. Although our federal government yields a lot of power, constitutionally, it doesn't have as much as its seems. It's an interesting model. It was more like the EU in it's inception than today in that each state was it's own country under a thin umbrella of federal government. The outcome of the US Civil War changed that significantly, but not enough to have a coherent, omnipotent federal system. (The EU doesn't have one either; each EU country controls most of their own sovereignty). One main difference is US states can't secede from the US while EU countries can. Another issue is free borders between states. If state A enacts universal healthcare, how does it prevent the sick inhabitants of neighboring states B,C,D,E from emmigrating and bankrupting the state? This model poses all sorts of problems. Even colleges have to deal with this. If you live in the same state as the college for a year, you are considered a permanent resident and get a significant tuition deduction (like 75% less). There are hundreds of examples of where autonomous states with free borders cause administration headaches. Imagine if the EU decided to have a governing body that took taxes and distributed services, like healthcare, military, infrastructure, etc. It would have to cut out parts of the tax code for Greece and add parts for France, etc. Not only that, but by industry. Then tack on special interest lobbying. It would be a mess. Not only that, what if 1/4 of the countries didn't have universal healthcare?

vacri 10y ago

Talk to an accountant with experience in dealing with tax both inside and outside the US, and watch them wither before your eyes when they describe the cacophony of the US taxation system. You gotta love a taxation system where everything changes depending on where something is sold versus where something is received versus where head office is, varying right down to the county level... Most of the reason why Americans get so frothy about tax is because they've made it ridiculously complex to comply with.

timthelion 10y ago
Really. In the Czech Republic the tax form for physical persons is a single A3 sheet folded in half, and one quarter of it is notes.

Clubber 10y ago

You've accidentally hit on a problem with much of the complexity of laws in the US: states have autonomy on a lot of things. Healthcare is a big one. It's regulated by the states. Insurance companies incorporate by state. Each state has it's own regulations. Some states are gun friendly, some are not. Although our federal government yields a lot of power, constitutionally, it doesn't have as much as its seems. It's an interesting model. It was more like the EU in it's inception than today in that each state was it's own country under a thin umbrella of federal government. The outcome of the US Civil War changed that significantly, but not enough to have a coherent, omnipotent federal system. (The EU doesn't have one either; each EU country controls most of their own sovereignty). One main difference is US states can't secede from the US while EU countries can. Another issue is free borders between states. If state A enacts universal healthcare, how does it prevent the sick inhabitants of neighboring states B,C,D,E from emmigrating and bankrupting the state? This model poses all sorts of problems. Even colleges have to deal with this. If you live in the same state as the college for a year, you are considered a permanent resident and get a significant tuition deduction (like 75% less). There are hundreds of examples of where autonomous states with free borders cause administration headaches. Imagine if the EU decided to have a governing body that took taxes and distributed services, like healthcare, military, infrastructure, etc. It would have to cut out parts of the tax code for Greece and add parts for France, etc. Not only that, but by industry. Then tack on special interest lobbying. It would be a mess. Not only that, what if 1/4 of the countries didn't have universal healthcare?