Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

peoplespolicyproject.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 534 posts

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#51

Post by Someone1234 »

justaman wrote: post #10
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…

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.

I cannot pick my own health insurance company. My choices are:

- Whatever my employer wants

- Something on the exchange for quadruple the price (particularly without my employer's share of premiums)

How does the market decide when it isn't a competitive market? Why are employers allowed to pick their employee's health insurance? Why are employed people at large companies paying less than employed people at startups?

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#52

Post by mikeash »

paulkon wrote: post #38
akhilcacharya wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The SS trust fund is currently about $3 trillion. While the money you pay in isn’t specifically set aside for your own use (the whole point of the program is to pool everyone together), it’s not like a Ponzi scheme where contributions from people paying in are directly used to make payments to beneficiaries.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#53

Post by vonmoltke »

titanomachy wrote: post #46
zrail wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$300 is a steal.

The US is the only place I know of where someone with good insurance coverage could expect to pay that much for a basic visit.

An emergency room is not a "basic visit".

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#54

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

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…

It's not always an option, but if it's possible -- consider Urgent Care if that's offered in your area.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#55

Post by RHSeeger »

paulkon wrote: post #38
akhilcacharya wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure why you've been downvoted. Your statement has both facts and opinion, and forwards the conversation.

Personally, I agree with your opinion. I think that we're going to get to the point where SS is taking in less than it pays out and, combined with the large amount of individuals who don't like anyone getting government money and so push to get rid of it, the system is going to fall apart.

The worst part is that it's not even the government's money. People pay into the SS and take back out later. It's supposed to work like a savings account, to some extent.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#56

Post by refurb »

raphaelj wrote: post #32

This does not take into account the fact that in most countries with an universal health care system, you will only contribute to it during your +/- 40 years career while you'll benefit from it during your whole life.

You don’t pay taxes once you’re retired? That’s certainly not true in places like Canada.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#57

Post by MichaelBurjack »

titanomachy wrote: post #16

The Canadian figures seem insanely low. 11.5% total? When I lived in BC making an approximately average income, my effective tax rate alone was 21% [EDIT: originally put 23%]. I paid pension, health insurance, and unemployment deductions on top of that. And that only counts the employee side of deductions. This example is "married with two kids", so it's possible that there are massive offsets that I didn't have acce…

You might have a skewed sense of what median Canadian income is. And your job might be further above that median than you realize.

Median Canadian individual income is ~$35,000 [0].

In B.C., your average 2019 tax rate would be 13.34% not including non-refundable tax credits (and so the effective rate would likely be a point or two lower). [1]

A median tax rate of 11.5% against a median Canadian individual income seems entirely reasonable.

----

0: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=111002...

1: https://www.ey.com/ca/en/services/tax/tax-calculators-2019-p...

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#58

Post by titanomachy »

tathougies wrote: post #34

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.

I'm not convinced that US military intervention in the last 40 years has led to a net increase in global security.

Although the existence of the US military probably helps. As long as they don't do anything.

I'm undecided on this one.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#59

Post by viburnum »

titanomachy wrote: post #16

The Canadian figures seem insanely low. 11.5% total? When I lived in BC making an approximately average income, my effective tax rate alone was 21% [EDIT: originally put 23%]. I paid pension, health insurance, and unemployment deductions on top of that. And that only counts the employee side of deductions. This example is "married with two kids", so it's possible that there are massive offsets that I didn't have acce…

Is this a Canadian federalism thing? Are social payments pronvincial instead of federal?

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#60

Post by acdha »

dsabanin wrote: post #33
pjc50 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That only works if you’re in high demand, and your health problems don’t preclude getting a new job. Very few workers can rely on that being true at any point in their lives, much less all the way until retirement.
Post reply on HN