> personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare Pre-retirement: I don't take any personal responsibility for healthcare. It’s not an option. My employer

> personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare Pre-retirement: I don't take any personal responsibility for healthcare. It’s not an option. My employer provides me with a menu of more-or-less completely standardized options. Those options even specify how often I should go to general checks-ups and strictly police my access to specialists. I have very little power to control my own consumption of healthcare, aside from the things that almost all countries delegate to individuals: attending my regular check-ups and avoiding the obvious vices. At least in Germany I could get access to a specialist without first finding a doctor who is expert at interacting with automated processes at some actuarial firm. The biggest choice I can ever make is “do I take on a bit more risk so that I can stow away money pre-tax in an HSA”. Post-retirement: Medicare. > retirement All Americans pay into SS and a huge portion of retirees do/will depend mostly on SS income to be able to retire. Even without SS, one in five Americans have a pension. The rest (who can afford to save for retirement) probably have a 401(K) with a small menu of target date funds. There are some tricks you can play on the side, sure, but they’re marginal. The rest is post-tax savings; again, afforded to most individuals in most (all) western societies. > employment I’m not sure how this is different from places like Europe or even China/Russia. In fact, the US is a bit of an outlier to the other extreme. As best I can tell, the US Department of Defense is undeniably the world’s largest social jobs program.