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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

#131

Post by exodus_de »

enraged_camel wrote: post #103
exodus_de wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My family in Germany throws a fit when they have to pay 50 Euro for something. Socialized insurance rates in Germany are 15% of income. Unless your family doesn't earn any money, they have been paying far more than 50 Euros. > In the US you can happy if your cost for seeing a doctor is less than 4 digits. That isn't generally true. Every insurance plan is different. Cheap plans have a high deductible. It's similar…

>>Socialized insurance rates in Germany are 15% of income. Unless your family doesn't earn any money, they have been paying far more than 50 Euros. Comments like this always miss the larger point, which is that healthcare overall is cheaper in socialized systems because the government as a large entity negotiates on behalf of citizens and puts strong downward pressure on prices.

Guess what, private insurance companies will also negotiate prices.

What happens in socialized systems is that the government does price fixing, which makes healthcare worse and it limits supply. Try getting a specialist appointment with socialized healthcare in Germany, it can take several months. Get private insurance (or pay out of pocket) and suddenly appointments become available. Doctors are leaving the country in droves.

Some of the hospitals in Germany are in an abysmal state, MRSA rates are extremely high:

https://correctiv.org/en/latest-stories/super-bugs/2017/01/1...

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#132

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

shams93 wrote: post #112
jakobegger wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a point of comparison, in Austria: - taking a kid to the ER costs nothing - taking a kid to a GP or a pediatrician costs nothing - staying a night at the hospital costs around 15€ - getting a prescription from the pharmacy costs 5€

Then there's education costs in the US, say you want your kid to go to CalArts, that's $50,000 a year just for tuition, so your kid gets out of school $500k in debt with a degree in performance art and a $3,000 a month student loan payment for life.

On the other hand, a typical state college is closer to $10,000.

Yes, it's not Ivy League, but it does the job.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#134

Post by lhorie »

wirrbel wrote: post #79
vonmoltke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An emergency room is not a "basic visit".

It is a basic visit. I attended a first-aid training for new parents here in my home country and the general advice was to seek help if in doubt, at night times by calling an ambulance or visiting, well, the emergency room. In two years we were there with our baby two times. Not charged a penny. During this time, I went once, my wife went once. In all instances we were reassured that it was appropriate to visit the h…

Yeah, taking a kid with a high fever to the ER in Toronto is a total no-brainer since it's 100% covered by OHIP. Now living in SF, and I've found myself mentally doing risk probability calculations, and concluding I'd be better off skipping the ER and instead following the instructions from off-the-shelf motrin because the ER visit is likely not worth the cost.

My wife firmly believes the US healthcare system is a giant scam where insurance companies leech off people without actually providing any value.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#135

Post by kelnos »

pochamago wrote: post #105

"If you include things that aren't taxes, people are taxed a lot more"

If you don't do something, comparing tax rates between countries is meaningless when you get different things for those tax dollars.

I think the developed world (minus us here in the US, of course) has finally realized that access to health care is a basic human right and should be included.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#136

Post by jdmichal »

rhacker wrote: post #87

Like to bring this up when we talk taxes: I think it's totally crazy that we give the feds 25% or more and our states soo soo sooooo much less. I think it should be the other way around: 5% for the feds, and maybe 20% to the states. The reason is that our cities are filled with bums, and have absolutely no money to either give them jobs or make new programs. The feds don't give a shit and are busy making missiles or…

This is actually a huge lever of control for the federal government, and I think has contributed greatly to increase of federal power over the states. The reason being that states can tap into that large federal stream... If they meet the federal criteria. This kind of carrot system is actually how many federal laws that seem to effect the states work. For instance, no state was ever mandated to implement the No Child Left Behind act. They just wouldn't get federal education funding if they didn't... Transportation is another area where this is pretty common.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#137

Post by exodus_de »

maxxxxx wrote: post #123
exodus_de wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ER visit is not the same as a simple doctor's visit. If ER visits are necessary (questionable in this case), they are covered by insurance - by law. Your deductible still applies.

Who cares about the deductible? It’s still a ripoff. My girlfriend had an eye infection while we were in Germany. We went to an eye doctor and paid 25 Euro cash including an ointment. The US is just horribly expensive and very unpredictable.

> Who cares about the deductible? It’s still a ripoff.

You should care about the deductible, cause you entered the contract, silly.

Get private insurance in Germany, there's also a deductible, unless you want to pay more.

> We went to an eye doctor and paid 25 Euro cash including an ointment. The US is just horribly expensive and very unpredictable.

That's because of price fixing (GOÄ). It's all they can charge. And they were probably happy about it because had you been insured they would've only gotten maybe half that.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#138

Post by filoleg »

DanBC wrote: post #96
jakobegger wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a kid with fever to the ER is about as basic as you get.

Doesn't the US have out-of-hours pharmacies, or out of hours doctors, or urgent but not emergency treatment centres?

Yep. Usually the rule of thumb is:

* Potentially life-threatening emergency: ER

* Something like a broken bone or fever that needs to be fixed asap, but not life-threatening: Urgent Care

* Everything else that can wait a bit: regular doctor appt

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#139

Post by kelnos »

mikeash wrote: post #69
z2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That budget seems to be always nonnegotiable, despite the occasional media outrage. Realistically, how can US voters change this? As an aside, the US is the only country I've seen give military personnel priority boarding for civilian flights. With all due respect to veterans, it seems so strange to do this sort of worshiping in what is effectively peacetime.

I think we could stand to do significantly less worshipping of our soldiers, but a lot of the ones boarding commercial flights are on their way to places like Afghanistan where groups of unfriendly armed crazy people will attempt to kill them.

I agree with you in principle, but calling people you've never met from another country and culture "unfriendly armed crazy people" is a big, sad reason why we even need militaries in the first place. I imagine many of those "crazy people" in Afghanistan consider the US military to be invaders who won't leave them alone.

It's of course all not that simple, but... why the need for unnecessary name-calling? It just perpetuates the "us vs. them" mentality that seems to be at the root of many of society's ills.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#140

Post by pbnjay »

vonmoltke wrote: post #68
maxxxxx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> In the US you can happy if your cost for seeing a doctor is less than 4 digits. My wife and I have never paid four figures for a doctor visit, despite having two surgeries (one oral), a calf strain, and a dislocated shoulder (with ER visit) between us. The state of medical care in the US is bad enough as it is; you don't need to make up hyperbolic bullshit to make it seem worse.

My 6yo son went to the ER with blue lips and we ended up with a $1400 bill for a glorified strep test.
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