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Because the healthcare costs are pushed onto everything else in Europe.
by donatj 10y ago
Because the healthcare costs are pushed onto everything else in Europe.
- kobeya 10y agoI'm not sure that's the whole story. Do European doctors and hospital administrators make $350,000/yr, plus kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies? There's a lot of structural inefficiencies in the American system that are not incentivised to go away.
- maxxxxx 10y agoThe healthcare bureaucracy in the US is insane. Every doctor seeems to have several people whose only job is to deal with insurance. And every insurance must have a ton of people who evaluate and deny claims.
- maxerickson 10y agoEvery practice has those people. But billing complexity is one of the factors driving doctors to work for hospitals and large organizations rather than in their own practice.
- maxxxxx 10y agoAnd hospitals are even worse at billing. They pretty much just make up charges and let the patient figure it out.
- realusername 10y agoThe country is paying more for healthcare in the US as well, the single payer healthcare is just much more efficient.
- fivestar 10y agoYet as bad as our taxes are in the states, I'm still not losing upwards of 60% of my income!
- ceejayoz 10y ago> I'm still not losing upwards of 60% of my income! Nor are Europeans. http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/1872-width/images/2012/10/blogs/graphic-detail/20121020_inc285_0.png http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac... Side note: I pay $28k/year in premiums and copays for healthcare, so I'd happily accept the higher tax rates. Employer-paid premiums hide the true costs of the American healthcare system from most.
- runako 10y ago> Employer-paid premiums hide the true costs of the American healthcare system from most. This. I'm actually shocked at the number of economists currently scratching their heads wondering where wage growth has gone, and when it will return. It seems obvious that the answer is that wage growth never left, it has simply been transferred wholesale to the health insurance side of the ledger so employees don't feel any richer.
- gumby 10y agoI think if you add taxes + medical expenses you'll find you pay about the same or even more than in most of Europe.
- corybrown 10y agoTop bracket for California and NYC works out to over 50%, but without free healthcare, education, and retirement.
- pjc50 10y agoIncluding health insurance? (It's extremely hard to lose 60% of your income as income taxes in much of Europe. UK tops out at slightly over 50%)
- mortehu 10y agoIf you take US spending on just Medicare and Medicaid and divide that by the total population (i.e. even people who aren't covered by those programs), you get a greater per capita number than all health care spending in UK (which covers all residents). So US is apparently just as willing as UK to spend federal money on health care, it just doesn't get as much in return.
- gumby 10y agoWell they are in the US too. They are in taxes, in the costs of goods (since many companies are paying for their employees' insurance) etc. You can strain it out of GDP to see how much it is: over 17% in the USA, 9.4% in Australia etc: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS