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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

#171

Post by mamon »

johnm1019 wrote: post #125
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…

This is missing a few important points. 1. The 15% of income has a cap. It's something like after 60k EUR in wages you don't pay anymore. Also, only 7.5% comes out of your paycheck, the employer pays the other half. When I was there a few years ago I was self employed so I had to pay "both sides". It would've worked out to roughly 750EUR/month for health insurance which had _0 deductible_ and _0 coinsurance_ for doct…

>> Also, only 7.5% comes out of your paycheck, the employer pays the other half

You might delude yourself that this "other half" is paid by the employer, but in reality your employer takes that cost into account when employing you, so they offer you lower gross salary because of that. In other words: it's still paid by you, just indirectly.

EDIT: more clear wording.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#172

Post by jedberg »

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.

Wait until you need dental surgery. I've never found a dental insurance that allows paying out more than $1,500/year. One gum graft alone is about $2,000. Dentures, replacement teeth, these all cost multiple thousands of dollars.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#173

Post by jpatokal »

interpol_p wrote: post #90
vonmoltke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An emergency room is not a "basic visit".

An emergency room is a fairly regular visit if you are a parent. I have three young kids and all of them have been to emergency at least a few times — you'll call the government hotline, they'll tell you how urgent it sounds, then you go They don't want anyone to risk staying home with their child if there's a chance that they are in danger This is in Australia and there is no cost for this

In Australia, you can also call a home visiting doctor outside business hours & on weekends, they'll come to your house in O(hours) and diagnose you for free. If you have some private health plans on top, they'll dispense basic meds like antibiotics on the spot as well. Far more convenient and likely cheaper to the taxpayer than waiting around ER for hours with a cranky baby with an ear infection.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#174

Post by munk-a »

tathougies wrote: post #152
perfmode wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t say the United States provides security when our actions and interventions tend to not be just. We are just a Mafia.

The Mafia also provides security. Since I've written the same thing to like three different comments. I'll say it again: Arguments that attack the morality of US action do not counter my claim that US action benefits many foreign countries, corporations, and individuals, who do not contribute anything to the funds that allow such action to take place. Depending on your point of view, this makes the rest of the world…

Perfect!

So as a counter to that, and dialing my language back to patton-y style, America is going around stirring up shit that the rest of the world needs to shovel. Why is it that after Syria and ISIS have emerged and created a refugee crisis the US is miraculously missing (on a per-GDP basis) in the aide efforts. While America is fueling economic growth beyond the ability for the earth to sustain it why has it refused to help people fleeing desertification in Africa. Oh, the situation in El Salvador, yea... America never did anything to turn central and south america into a dumpster fire...

America is the vampire, trying to suck all the resources and productivity into a machine that feeds itself - with little regard for the rest of the world.

Oh wait, that was too reductionist... maybe the US does a lot of good by sending food aide around the world but also causes problems... maybe the rest of the world is the same, being good sometimes and bad others, and no one nation is some beacon of light and purity that all others are constantly sucking[1] the productivity out of.

[1] The analogies used above were pretty weird and awkward,

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#175

Post by jimbokun »

exodus_de wrote: post #137
maxxxxx wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

This is stupid. There is no real way to shop and bring down health insurance costs in the US. It's tied to your job, meaning you would need to get many job offers, and turn them down when you find out the actual insurance costs until you find one that's better, and ignoring other employment factors.

And then everything can change the next time open enrollment comes around. Don't like the deductible, time to start the job search again! Oh, and the deductibles are probably about the same at all the other companies, anyway.

It's just a stupid system from top to bottom, locked into place because our political representatives are completely uninterested in governing.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#176

Post by balfirevic »

johnm1019 wrote: post #125
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…

This is missing a few important points. 1. The 15% of income has a cap. It's something like after 60k EUR in wages you don't pay anymore. Also, only 7.5% comes out of your paycheck, the employer pays the other half. When I was there a few years ago I was self employed so I had to pay "both sides". It would've worked out to roughly 750EUR/month for health insurance which had _0 deductible_ and _0 coinsurance_ for doct…

> Also, only 7.5% comes out of your paycheck, the employer pays the other half.

That distinction is imaginary. It all comes out of your total cost for employer, which either goes to you or to (possibly earmarked) taxes.

This doesn't mean the amount is not fair (it very well might be). But it's important to realize it all comes from your paycheck.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#177

Post by munk-a »

silotis wrote: post #150
mikeash wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The SS trust fund is an accounting fiction. The vast majority of it is held as treasury securities and the cash has long since been spent. Thus the federal government has offsetting liabilities for all of those assets. Once SS starts spending more than it takes in, the feds will have to raise capital to cover the shortfall, same as if the trust fund did not exist.

Sorry, this comment missed a big point - the money wasn't spent on Social Security, the money has been borrowed by other agencies and expenditures that owe it back.

That's like saying "Oh man, your job isn't paying you enough money, you should quit." 'But I make 80k, that's plenty!' "Oh, you uh did, until I stole all but five dollars." 'Oh darn, guess I'll quit then.'

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#178

Post by jnbiche »

morsma wrote: post #130
mschuetz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and cost of health insurance in Austria is just 7,65% of your income, and it covers your children. When I've worked in the US, I've paid just as much for health insurance and still had high out-of-pockets and deductibles on top of that.

For me it's the opposite. I moved from Denmark to the US, and I pay around $400 in health insurance premiums (health, eye, and dental) for a whole family. In Denmark, only health is covered, so for eye and dental many go out-of-country to get it cheap. The US is much cheaper for all health insurances, except if your poor. Obama tried to fix that, but made it worse and more expensive for everyone (socialism).

If you're poor in the US, insurance is free. It's the lower middle class and middle class who are frequently bankrupted by these costs.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#179

Post by gwright »

johnm1019 wrote: post #125
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…

This is missing a few important points. 1. The 15% of income has a cap. It's something like after 60k EUR in wages you don't pay anymore. Also, only 7.5% comes out of your paycheck, the employer pays the other half. When I was there a few years ago I was self employed so I had to pay "both sides". It would've worked out to roughly 750EUR/month for health insurance which had _0 deductible_ and _0 coinsurance_ for doct…

> Also, only 7.5% comes out of your paycheck, the employer pays the other half

This just means that paychecks are 7.5% lower then they would otherwise be. It is a mistake to think that the employer paid benefits are "free". The market adjusts. You find that out right quick of you are self-employed (at least in the US).

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#180

Post by tathougies »

munk-a wrote: post #161
tathougies wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although the existence of the US military probably helps. As long as they don't do anything. But the US has one of the largest all-volunteer armies in the world, with some of the most advanced technology, so it makes sense that it costs more. My comment is not a justification for America's military power, it is simply an observation that American tax payers pay for something the rest of the world gets to enjoy for…

Partially yea, it may be that using the word "security" in that first post was a wording error that caused a bunch of people to misunderstand you. But then, in this follow up, you've mentioned that Norway is benefiting from the US lowering the supply of oil (I assume via setting it, and the people who extract it, on fire)... I am not Norwegian and can't speak as to their preference, but given that Norway is currently…

> Norwegian ethical stance is against the US starting wars in the middle east and killing people to make their oil a bit more valuable.

I mean the American ethical stance, as demonstrated numerous times by various popular votes, is also against war. However, that does not change the fact that countries benefit from it. Ultimately, while perhaps making some countries hypocritical, none of what you said changes the argument I put forth: namely that, by virtue of being the only country whose citizens are forced to pay for the status quo (which has the effect of subsidizing the economies of many of the countries to which the article attempts to compare the united states), there is no way to properly compare US tax policy to any other country.

> Partially yea, it may be that using the word "security" in that first post was a wording error that caused a bunch of people to misunderstand you

Indeed. For some reason, many people define security as not just security of the status quo but also some cosmic fight between good and evil.

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