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Your point about employee costs rising with healthcare is terrific and needs wider cultural recognition. This increases the cost of labor, and therefore cost o

Your point about employee costs rising with healthcare is terrific and needs wider cultural recognition. This increases the cost of labor, and therefore cost of goods across the economy. Its a big part of the reason why US based manufacturing is increasingly impractical. Your point expands to all social services our government has outsourced, from retirement benefits to transportation, too.

gadflyinyoureye 5y ago
We'd still have the costs if the government took those in-house. Germans pay around $1500 a month (personal + employer costs) for healthcare. Other government programs add more cost. Bring those in cost would not really bring the cost of the employee down. Rather it would expand the weight and power of the government via increased taxes.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gmadsen 5y ago
  it distributes the cost across all sectors, which as the above poster commented would be beneficial to hiring low skill workers
- bserge 5y ago
  Germans pay at most $750/month (incl. employer contributions), and that's practically for the upper middle class (4500+/mo). The healthcare tax is capped at that, you can't pay any more. Correct me if I'm wrong. Not that it matters, their healthcare is garbage. Emergency services and surgery, sure, great. For that one time in your 80 years that you need it. Anything non vital? Weeks and months of waiting time. Mental healthcare? Non existent. Want the latest medicine? Fuck off to the US. Homeopathy? Paid for by insurance. You're part of the "Untermensch"? Pay and shut up or fuck off back where you came from, you dirty monkey.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  It wouldn’t change the actual costs of living, but it would remove the inflection points where a full time employee is suddenly much more expensive than a 38 hour a work employee. And the taxes could be spread more progressively, e.g. to match the rate of wealth accumulation people get from having passively having wealth

gadflyinyoureye 5y ago

We'd still have the costs if the government took those in-house. Germans pay around $1500 a month (personal + employer costs) for healthcare. Other government programs add more cost. Bring those in cost would not really bring the cost of the employee down. Rather it would expand the weight and power of the government via increased taxes.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gmadsen 5y ago
it distributes the cost across all sectors, which as the above poster commented would be beneficial to hiring low skill workers
bserge 5y ago
Germans pay at most $750/month (incl. employer contributions), and that's practically for the upper middle class (4500+/mo). The healthcare tax is capped at that, you can't pay any more. Correct me if I'm wrong. Not that it matters, their healthcare is garbage. Emergency services and surgery, sure, great. For that one time in your 80 years that you need it. Anything non vital? Weeks and months of waiting time. Mental healthcare? Non existent. Want the latest medicine? Fuck off to the US. Homeopathy? Paid for by insurance. You're part of the "Untermensch"? Pay and shut up or fuck off back where you came from, you dirty monkey.
oneoff786 5y ago
It wouldn’t change the actual costs of living, but it would remove the inflection points where a full time employee is suddenly much more expensive than a 38 hour a work employee. And the taxes could be spread more progressively, e.g. to match the rate of wealth accumulation people get from having passively having wealth