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US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

peoplespolicyproject.org

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Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#31

Post by ajross »

munk-a wrote: post #17
viburnum wrote: post #8

It’s worse if you include 401k payments to offset a more generous public pension.

Or really any public pension. I feel like if you're <40 then you should be planning for Social Security to not exist when you get old, anything else seems overly optimistic.

There's literally no analysis that shows social security completely failing at any point. That's spin you're getting from partisan media, and it's absolutely infuriating the people allow this to persist.

In a few years, given no changes, the cash flow will go negative and we'll begin spending down the trust fund. By 2035 or so (I forget the numbers, and the projections tend to vary widely anyway because of differing models and, yeah, partisan spin) the trust fund will be spent and the social security administration will need to adjust, as it will be taking in something like 80% of obligations.

A 20% shortfall is a big accounting problem. It's hardly "plan for it not to exist".

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#33

Post by dsabanin »

pjc50 wrote: post #20
justaman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trusting in a private company that must react to market changes is different than trusting in a government that doesn't listen to you anyway.

If it's employer-chosen, you're not the customer and they're not listening to you either.

Why do you stop there? The chain goes on. Employer will have to listen to the employees or they will be on a lookout for better place to work. It's not uncommon at all for employers to tout benefits as a way to attract new hires.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#34

Post by tathougies »

Individual US tax payers pay for most of the world's security. This is one tax of being the global super power, so it's not particularly surprising that when you include all things the US tax payer pays for privately that is taxed in other countries, you arrive at a number higher than other similar countries.

In reality, there is no country with which we can fairly compare US tax rates.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#35

Post by munk-a »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #29
munk-a wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or really any public pension. I feel like if you're <40 then you should be planning for Social Security to not exist when you get old, anything else seems overly optimistic.

As someone that started paying into SS a few years ago this sounds more like a cynical self-fulfilling prophecy more than anything else.

I definitely place myself on the liberal side of politics and will support social security for people before and after myself, but the current generation of older folks definitely appear to be trying to pull that ladder up behind them.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#36

Post by btilly »

penagwin wrote: post #5

I never understood why people are against some form of universal healthcare. The idea of "socialism" or "communism" scare many conservatives, but it just doesn't make sense here. How universal healthcare sorta works - we all put money in a pot, and use it to pay for healthcare. How health insurance works - we put money into a company, who uses it to pay for healthcare, while taking a significant cut as it's a private…

I find it ironic that you stated the answer to your own question and didn't notice.

That is, how notoriously terrible the government is at organization is a major reason for why people are against universal healthcare. Whether their concerns are overblown or not I leave to opinion. But that is a major fear for many.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#37

Post by maxxxxx »

zrail wrote: post #30
Someone1234 wrote: post #19

I moved to the US from a country with socialised medicine. When you include premiums then taxes in both were roughly similar if not a little higher in the US (ignoring cost of living differences). But even that doesn't include the real sting on the tail of US medicine. You pay a fairly high health insurance premium, but if you actually need health services you then pay again through the nose even with insurance "disc…

$300 is a steal.

My family in Germany throws a fit when they have to pay 50 Euro for something. In the US you can happy if your cost for seeing a doctor is less than 4 digits.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#38

Post by paulkon »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #29
munk-a wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or really any public pension. I feel like if you're <40 then you should be planning for Social Security to not exist when you get old, anything else seems overly optimistic.

As someone that started paying into SS a few years ago this sounds more like a cynical self-fulfilling prophecy more than anything else.

You're paying into SS but that money is not being set aside for you, it's being used for current retirees. The next generation will have to pay into SS for you and betting that SS will not change it's payout conditions till then, in the midst of mounting debt liabilities and potentially shrinking contributions, is quite optimistic.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#39

Post by abalone »

arosier wrote: post #12

>It’s just that they pay it into a private insurance system that wastes large portions of it on rents and administrative redundancy. Would love to see a breakdown of real estate and admin costs for private insurance systems throughout the States to understand how much could be saved by eliminating redundancy. Not seeing this broken out in Anthem's Financials: https://ir.antheminc.com/static-files/73562e56-886c-4ff5-a…

According to a comprehensive study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, U.S. admin costs are double that of Canada.[1] More context in this NYT column, which features this quote: "'The extraordinary costs we see are not because of administrative slack or because health care leaders don’t try to economize,' said Kevin Schulman, a co-author of [another] study and a professor of medicine at Duke. 'The high administrative costs are functions of the system’s complexity.'"[2]

Also, these studies don't take into account the time/opportunity cost to consumers of navigating this complicated system, which can be quite substantial.

[1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa022033

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/upshot/costs-health-care-...

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#40

Post by Someone1234 »

zrail wrote: post #30
Someone1234 wrote: post #19

I moved to the US from a country with socialised medicine. When you include premiums then taxes in both were roughly similar if not a little higher in the US (ignoring cost of living differences). But even that doesn't include the real sting on the tail of US medicine. You pay a fairly high health insurance premium, but if you actually need health services you then pay again through the nose even with insurance "disc…

$300 is a steal.

Just to be clear, $300 was only our share of the bill. Insurance also picked up more than that, and there were insurance "discounts" applied.
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