7 ms·

It's more like we pay half our salary in taxes and then we get terrible education and a healthcare system where you can't even get an appointment.

by jiofj 3y ago

harha 3y ago
and it creates all the wrong incentives since they're overdoing it by quite a bit. it also forces people to less optimal decisions because they need to avoid taxes. at the end of the day, this makes them less resilient, since governments won't be fast enough to react to new developments and incentivized to actually solve problems. edit: just to add to this: I don't think pooling / sharing is bad, there are many cases where this makes sense (investments, insurance), especially when it's voluntary, but it's easy to overdo it in a forced model. European living abroad btw, familiar with many different ways people live.
- geysersam 3y ago
  Optimal decision making = poor people don't buy health insurance, rich people buy health insurance
abwizz 3y ago
on the flip side, would you rather the bribe your dr for an appointment and "donate" to the school?
- harha 3y ago
  well you need to in a public system that's overloaded, so you lose both when paying in and again when you need to get treatment.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    Americans pay more in tax towards public healthcare than we do in some European countries. Then they pay again. E.g. the UK NHS costs less per capita than Medicare + Medicaid costs per capita (not per user), despite the former providing universal service. Partly explained by artificial restrictions on Medicare limiting their ability to negotiate price - the "free" market is intentionally prevented from functioning. It's pretty much corporate welfare paid for by regular tax payers. I never understand why Americans tolerate this. The proportion who pays twice in the UK is around 10% who opt for private insurance on top. The proportion who pays twice in the US is every tax payer. Total healthcare spend per capita (public + private) tells a pretty clear picture, where costs of healthcare in the US is totally out of control.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >Americans pay more in tax towards public healthcare than we do in some European countries. Then they pay again. The US system is designed to be profitable for those running it, not offer good value for those using it.
    - harha 3y ago
      Yeah US really has the worst of it all, very high taxes and not much to show for it.
      - abwizz 3y ago
        they arguably got the best military power projection capabilities
idontwantthis 3y ago
All we need is more doctors and nurses and that is not the fault of any kind of insurance. 8000 doctors graduate from medical school in the US each year and fail to match with a residency because there simply aren’t enough spots. That can be fixed.
bdg 3y ago
When I meet someone with two PhDs in Europe I started to evaluate if they're contributing massive brain-blasts to civilization or if they just wanted to delay the next chapter of adulthood and use free education as a camouflage.
- numbers_guy 3y ago
  A Ph.d is mostly cheap labour for the relevant research institution. I wouldn't count that as a cost to society unless the work done is not useful, in which case it is not the Ph.d graduate but the research institution that funded the project that is to blame. Get a Ph.d position is quite competitive and the ones which are less "useful" from an immediate economic perspective are paid much worse.
- consilient 3y ago
  PhDs are apprentices doing skilled labor, not students in the usual sense. An unfunded PhD offer, even in the US, is a polite rejection.
vidarh 3y ago
The vast majority of people in Europe pays nowhere near half our salary in taxes. Only a few countries have total tax wedges (including employer payroll taxes) that reach that level for more than small minorities of the population.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  Not sure why you get downvoted; most taxes are scales and the highest is around 50%. That doesn't mean you pay 50%. Or even close to it.
  - victorbjorklund 3y ago
    In sweden we also have social insurance fee (which is a tax according to all def even if it is called a fee) and VAT. 50% is just one of many taxes. You should count all the taxes an individual pays.
    - anonzzzies 3y ago
      So then you would need, in other countries, count all the unemployment insurance, pension, school premiums and healthcare insurance also towards their tax. Then yes. When people outside more socialist countries say they pay far less tax, they never include any of this, so I don’t either.
      - ekianjo 3y ago
        [flagged]
    - vidarh 3y ago
      The average earner in Sweden pays <25% combined in tax + social insurance fee according to OECD Taxing Wages.
- Try1275 3y ago
  I live in Austria. I pay 48% on everything above 60k € and 50% above 90k. Our VAT is 20%. Most people who can afford it pay for private doctors because it‘s almost impossible to get an appointment with one that‘s covered by normal health care. So I guess at least for my country the statement above is somewhat true.
anonzzzies 3y ago
Where? Nonsense as far as I have seen (lived in 4 EU countries and still living in one). Hospital wise I never had to wait (i'm on public healthcare); MRI's, operations, scopes etc are always within a few weeks. I heard far far worse stories from countries without public healthcare and people with private health insurance , including the US. If you are a millionaire or richer, sure; paying cash is faster, but that's not a system and that works everywhere anyway. We have a bunch of universities in the global top 100 and I have been to one of them which didn't cost me (or my parents) more than a few k euro.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >lived in 4 EU countries and still living in one ... MRI's, operations, scopes etc are always within a few weeks Where?
  - pasc1878 3y ago
    UK for one from my experience. Also GP appointments within a few hours - twice in the last fortnight
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Everyone I know in the UK said they could only get GP appointments days in the future, never on such short notice.
  - ido 3y ago
    I’ve lived in Austria and Germany and had the misfortune of needing medical care multiple times in both in the almost 20 years I’ve spent in them so far- I’ve never had to wait long or pay much (most of the time pay nothing). I got good care, even though many doctors and nurses seem to have not hears of the concept of bedside manners.
- yardstick 3y ago
  In London (both before and after Brexit), getting an appointment with the local GP was a pain and could involve waiting weeks. Also, you could only get appointments by calling at certain times of the day and normally all slots would be allocated within minutes of the phone lines opening. Sure, you could always go to the emergency room at the hospital and wait hours to be seen, but I don’t think that counts.
Broken_Hippo 3y ago
I couldn't always get an appointment in the US - and this is a common issue with specialists. At least here in Norway, if I have to wait for something and I'm sick, I get paid time off work. I'll never go bankrupt from medical bills. Taxes plus health insurance premiums was more expensive in the states than payroll taxes here. There is an actual safety net. I'm unlikely to starve or be homeless for any length of time. The VAT isn't nearly as bad since it is generally an upfront cost, included in price. Some exceptions apply with online shopping. ¨ Oh, and I'll mention that I can always get an appointment with my GP if I'm sick: They keep some time slots open for urgent things. I might wait a few weeks when it isn't urgent. And I won't lose my job for having appointments.
- draugadrotten 3y ago
  > At least here in Norway Norway has an enormous amount of wealth from oil and therefore it is not a good example to show any benefits from pooling wealth. Norway won the lottery, that is all. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/norways-wealth-fund-posts-84-billion-first-quarter-profit-2023-04-21/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/norways-wealth-fund-p...
  - madsbuch 3y ago
    It is the same in Denmark (and most other Scandinavian countries). Also, Norways oil money, as you write yourself, go into their sovereign fund and does not directly fund wellfare. There are many theories why the Scandinavian model works on Scandinavia but does not seem to work other places, but to my best knowledge, natural resources are not any of these explanations.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >Also, Norways oil money, as you write yourself, go into their sovereign fund and does not directly fund wellfare. That's orthogonal. Having a massive sovereign fund as your rainy day fund goes a long way in your strategic long term thinking and budget planning compared to countries without that rainy day fund. >There are many theories why the Scandinavian model works on Scandinavia but does not seem to work other places, but to my best knowledge, natural resources are not any of these explanations. Because lack of corruption, government transparency and regulations plus a high trust society are also needed, not just pooling all our tax money for welfare. And those qualities don't exist in many other countries. Scandinavian countries are the global exception, not the norm. The norm everywhere else is "everyone for himself, fuck you I got mine, you go get yours, if you're poor it's your fault for being lazy", despite implementing various welfare programs similar to Scandinavian ones.
ekianjo 3y ago
[flagged]
mo_42 3y ago
Might be true but I've never heard of any European who was bankrupt because of student loans or doctors invoices. Also, it doesn’t seem like Europeans are much more uneducated or unhealthy than people in the US.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  You dont have student loans in the EU because the universities are subsidized...
  - yorwba 3y ago
    There are student loans in the EU, because subsidizing universities doesn't extend to providing free food and housing for students. E.g. student loans offered by a German state-owned bank: https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Privatpersonen/Studieren-Qualifizieren/F%C3%B6rderprodukte/KfW-Studienkredit-(174)/ https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Privatpersonen/Studiere... (Though I don't think many people need it, because most can just get a part-time job and finish in double the time, debt-free.)
  - refurb 3y ago
    Tuition is subsidized. But I don't know about you, but living expenses for 1 year are often as much or more than public college tuition in the US.
- jiofj 3y ago
  Dunno why everybody is using this thread to compare the EU to the US, as if I cared about how it is in the US. I'm telling you I pay over half my salary in taxes and get little in return. Whatever happens in the US is not my problem.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > Dunno why everybody is using this thread to compare the EU to the US, as if I cared about how it is in the US. Because the comment that you replied to was comparing the EU to the US: "And everyone benefits from this kind of collective solidarity - our societies are far less combative (both in the literal and the proverbial sense) than the US are."
lapcat 3y ago
> It's more like we pay half our salary in taxes and then we get terrible education and a healthcare system where you can't even get an appointment. You're talking about the US, right? I and people I know in different states have often had to wait months to get an appointment with a doctor. The quality of education you get in the US varies drastically depending on your location, and typically the wealth of your parents.
heavyset_go 3y ago
I'm in one of the largest metro areas of the US and there are 6+ month long waiting lists to see some common specialists, even if you have great health insurance and even if you want to pay up front in cash. People will die on those lists.
- geysersam 3y ago
  Sounds like it's the same pretty much anywhere then

It's more like we pay half our salary in taxes and then we get terrible education and a healthcare system where you can't even get an appointment.

by jiofj 3y ago

It's more like we pay half our salary in taxes and then we get terrible education and a healthcare system where you can't even get an appointment.

harha 3y ago

and it creates all the wrong incentives since they're overdoing it by quite a bit. it also forces people to less optimal decisions because they need to avoid taxes. at the end of the day, this makes them less resilient, since governments won't be fast enough to react to new developments and incentivized to actually solve problems. edit: just to add to this: I don't think pooling / sharing is bad, there are many cases where this makes sense (investments, insurance), especially when it's voluntary, but it's easy to overdo it in a forced model. European living abroad btw, familiar with many different ways people live.

geysersam 3y ago
Optimal decision making = poor people don't buy health insurance, rich people buy health insurance

abwizz 3y ago

on the flip side, would you rather the bribe your dr for an appointment and "donate" to the school?

harha 3y ago
well you need to in a public system that's overloaded, so you lose both when paying in and again when you need to get treatment.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Americans pay more in tax towards public healthcare than we do in some European countries. Then they pay again. E.g. the UK NHS costs less per capita than Medicare + Medicaid costs per capita (not per user), despite the former providing universal service. Partly explained by artificial restrictions on Medicare limiting their ability to negotiate price - the "free" market is intentionally prevented from functioning. It's pretty much corporate welfare paid for by regular tax payers. I never understand why Americans tolerate this. The proportion who pays twice in the UK is around 10% who opt for private insurance on top. The proportion who pays twice in the US is every tax payer. Total healthcare spend per capita (public + private) tells a pretty clear picture, where costs of healthcare in the US is totally out of control.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Americans pay more in tax towards public healthcare than we do in some European countries. Then they pay again. The US system is designed to be profitable for those running it, not offer good value for those using it.
  - harha 3y ago
    Yeah US really has the worst of it all, very high taxes and not much to show for it.
    - abwizz 3y ago
      they arguably got the best military power projection capabilities

idontwantthis 3y ago

All we need is more doctors and nurses and that is not the fault of any kind of insurance. 8000 doctors graduate from medical school in the US each year and fail to match with a residency because there simply aren’t enough spots. That can be fixed.

bdg 3y ago

When I meet someone with two PhDs in Europe I started to evaluate if they're contributing massive brain-blasts to civilization or if they just wanted to delay the next chapter of adulthood and use free education as a camouflage.

numbers_guy 3y ago
A Ph.d is mostly cheap labour for the relevant research institution. I wouldn't count that as a cost to society unless the work done is not useful, in which case it is not the Ph.d graduate but the research institution that funded the project that is to blame. Get a Ph.d position is quite competitive and the ones which are less "useful" from an immediate economic perspective are paid much worse.
consilient 3y ago
PhDs are apprentices doing skilled labor, not students in the usual sense. An unfunded PhD offer, even in the US, is a polite rejection.

vidarh 3y ago

The vast majority of people in Europe pays nowhere near half our salary in taxes. Only a few countries have total tax wedges (including employer payroll taxes) that reach that level for more than small minorities of the population.

anonzzzies 3y ago
Not sure why you get downvoted; most taxes are scales and the highest is around 50%. That doesn't mean you pay 50%. Or even close to it.
- victorbjorklund 3y ago
  In sweden we also have social insurance fee (which is a tax according to all def even if it is called a fee) and VAT. 50% is just one of many taxes. You should count all the taxes an individual pays.
  - anonzzzies 3y ago
    So then you would need, in other countries, count all the unemployment insurance, pension, school premiums and healthcare insurance also towards their tax. Then yes. When people outside more socialist countries say they pay far less tax, they never include any of this, so I don’t either.
    - ekianjo 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - vidarh 3y ago
    The average earner in Sweden pays <25% combined in tax + social insurance fee according to OECD Taxing Wages.
Try1275 3y ago
I live in Austria. I pay 48% on everything above 60k € and 50% above 90k. Our VAT is 20%. Most people who can afford it pay for private doctors because it‘s almost impossible to get an appointment with one that‘s covered by normal health care. So I guess at least for my country the statement above is somewhat true.

anonzzzies 3y ago

Where? Nonsense as far as I have seen (lived in 4 EU countries and still living in one). Hospital wise I never had to wait (i'm on public healthcare); MRI's, operations, scopes etc are always within a few weeks. I heard far far worse stories from countries without public healthcare and people with private health insurance , including the US. If you are a millionaire or richer, sure; paying cash is faster, but that's not a system and that works everywhere anyway. We have a bunch of universities in the global top 100 and I have been to one of them which didn't cost me (or my parents) more than a few k euro.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>lived in 4 EU countries and still living in one ... MRI's, operations, scopes etc are always within a few weeks Where?
- pasc1878 3y ago
  UK for one from my experience. Also GP appointments within a few hours - twice in the last fortnight
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Everyone I know in the UK said they could only get GP appointments days in the future, never on such short notice.
- ido 3y ago
  I’ve lived in Austria and Germany and had the misfortune of needing medical care multiple times in both in the almost 20 years I’ve spent in them so far- I’ve never had to wait long or pay much (most of the time pay nothing). I got good care, even though many doctors and nurses seem to have not hears of the concept of bedside manners.
yardstick 3y ago
In London (both before and after Brexit), getting an appointment with the local GP was a pain and could involve waiting weeks. Also, you could only get appointments by calling at certain times of the day and normally all slots would be allocated within minutes of the phone lines opening. Sure, you could always go to the emergency room at the hospital and wait hours to be seen, but I don’t think that counts.

Broken_Hippo 3y ago

I couldn't always get an appointment in the US - and this is a common issue with specialists. At least here in Norway, if I have to wait for something and I'm sick, I get paid time off work. I'll never go bankrupt from medical bills. Taxes plus health insurance premiums was more expensive in the states than payroll taxes here. There is an actual safety net. I'm unlikely to starve or be homeless for any length of time. The VAT isn't nearly as bad since it is generally an upfront cost, included in price. Some exceptions apply with online shopping. ¨ Oh, and I'll mention that I can always get an appointment with my GP if I'm sick: They keep some time slots open for urgent things. I might wait a few weeks when it isn't urgent. And I won't lose my job for having appointments.

draugadrotten 3y ago
> At least here in Norway Norway has an enormous amount of wealth from oil and therefore it is not a good example to show any benefits from pooling wealth. Norway won the lottery, that is all. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/norways-wealth-fund-posts-84-billion-first-quarter-profit-2023-04-21/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/norways-wealth-fund-p...
- madsbuch 3y ago
  It is the same in Denmark (and most other Scandinavian countries). Also, Norways oil money, as you write yourself, go into their sovereign fund and does not directly fund wellfare. There are many theories why the Scandinavian model works on Scandinavia but does not seem to work other places, but to my best knowledge, natural resources are not any of these explanations.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Also, Norways oil money, as you write yourself, go into their sovereign fund and does not directly fund wellfare. That's orthogonal. Having a massive sovereign fund as your rainy day fund goes a long way in your strategic long term thinking and budget planning compared to countries without that rainy day fund. >There are many theories why the Scandinavian model works on Scandinavia but does not seem to work other places, but to my best knowledge, natural resources are not any of these explanations. Because lack of corruption, government transparency and regulations plus a high trust society are also needed, not just pooling all our tax money for welfare. And those qualities don't exist in many other countries. Scandinavian countries are the global exception, not the norm. The norm everywhere else is "everyone for himself, fuck you I got mine, you go get yours, if you're poor it's your fault for being lazy", despite implementing various welfare programs similar to Scandinavian ones.

ekianjo 3y ago

[flagged]

mo_42 3y ago

Might be true but I've never heard of any European who was bankrupt because of student loans or doctors invoices. Also, it doesn’t seem like Europeans are much more uneducated or unhealthy than people in the US.

ekianjo 3y ago
You dont have student loans in the EU because the universities are subsidized...
- yorwba 3y ago
  There are student loans in the EU, because subsidizing universities doesn't extend to providing free food and housing for students. E.g. student loans offered by a German state-owned bank: https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Privatpersonen/Studieren-Qualifizieren/F%C3%B6rderprodukte/KfW-Studienkredit-(174)/ https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Privatpersonen/Studiere... (Though I don't think many people need it, because most can just get a part-time job and finish in double the time, debt-free.)
- refurb 3y ago
  Tuition is subsidized. But I don't know about you, but living expenses for 1 year are often as much or more than public college tuition in the US.
jiofj 3y ago
Dunno why everybody is using this thread to compare the EU to the US, as if I cared about how it is in the US. I'm telling you I pay over half my salary in taxes and get little in return. Whatever happens in the US is not my problem.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > Dunno why everybody is using this thread to compare the EU to the US, as if I cared about how it is in the US. Because the comment that you replied to was comparing the EU to the US: "And everyone benefits from this kind of collective solidarity - our societies are far less combative (both in the literal and the proverbial sense) than the US are."

lapcat 3y ago

> It's more like we pay half our salary in taxes and then we get terrible education and a healthcare system where you can't even get an appointment. You're talking about the US, right? I and people I know in different states have often had to wait months to get an appointment with a doctor. The quality of education you get in the US varies drastically depending on your location, and typically the wealth of your parents.

heavyset_go 3y ago

I'm in one of the largest metro areas of the US and there are 6+ month long waiting lists to see some common specialists, even if you have great health insurance and even if you want to pay up front in cash. People will die on those lists.

geysersam 3y ago
Sounds like it's the same pretty much anywhere then