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

401–410 of 534 posts

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#401

Post by afpx »

roenxi wrote: post #270
TallGuyShort wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't even find out what stuff costs beforehand either. I had to get a blood test. I had gotten burned before where my insurance said they covered a physical, but it turns out their definition of a physical didn't include the doctor's definition, which included blood tests. So before I had my blood drawn, I asked them to tell me what the tests would cost if my insurance didn't cover it. "It depends on how it's coded,…

'You should know the price before you agree to buy the product' seems like such an innocuous principle. Why isn't their broad-based support of it for medical care? If you need emergency care then sure, there isn't time. The vast majority of interactions with the medical system aren't that type of emergency though. People have time to choose the better of two options. They can't decide on better if they don't know the…

What do you recommend if it requires 2 months to get an appointment with a different specialist?

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#402

Post by swish_bob »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #114
wirrbel wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Interestingly, in the UK they had a large "this is not an emergency" campaign trying to make people to choose GPs over emergency services.

And provide us with a dedicated phone number staffed by people trained to identify whether it is, in fact, an emergency, who will tell you to call an ambulance if necessary.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#403

Post by philjohn »

chrisgd wrote: post #328
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.

I will pay $4,800 to cover a family of 4. If I need to use it, I have a $6,000 deductible (company pays first $4k and I pay last $2k). All doctor visits are 100% deductible until it is fully paid, then $50 / visit. The HSA can be used to pay the deductible and pharmacy costs.

Yes - so you're worse off.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#404

Post by lucian1900 »

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).

Can you imagine someone thinking that Obama, a neoliberal imperialist, was a socialist?

Or that socialism is a bad thing?

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#405

Post by philjohn »

So - in the UK you pay national insurance, which ostensibly pays for the NHS and retirement benefits.

If you earn £150k a year (top 2% of salaries in the UK) you pay £6,964.16 a year. That's an astounding deal. There are no deductibles, no co pays for hospital stays, GP visits are free, as are any tests and investigations.

You do pay £9 for each item on a prescription, but if you get more than 3 items a month you can pay a flat rate of £104 a year for a prepayment certificate.

Private health insurance is still a thing - it just gets you a nicer room in a private hospital and quicker treatment for non life-threatening conditions.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#406

Post by kelnos »

gwright wrote: post #246
kelnos wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The primary reason that some people push back against this notion of health care as a "basic human right" is that it is an example of a "right" that can only be provided by force. And by force I mean that the only way it can be "guaranteed" by the government is for the government to forcibly collect taxes to pay for the services. Forceable redistribution is required. Perhaps even forcible job assignments (nurses, doc…

> It is interesting that you qualify your claim that health care is a "basic human right" to the "developed world". Does that mean that it is not a "basic human right" in other parts of the world?

You misunderstand. I personally believe that everyone has a right to access to healthcare. My point was that the developed world has finally decided (for the most part) to recognize and codify that into law and taxation, whereas much of the less-developed world has not (to be fair, a decent amount of it has, though).

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#407

Post by kelnos »

bradknowles wrote: post #181
kelnos wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. There are non-ER/non-hospital urgent-care centers, but they usually keep to roughly normal business hours. For after-hours care, the ER at a hospital is often your only option.

Depends on where you are. Some places have 24-hour Urgent Care centers that can handle the basic stuff that doesn't need a real ER. But many places don't have any kind of Urgent Care centers, much less one that is open 24 hours a day.

Yes, that's why I said "usually" and "often".

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#408

Post by notahacker »

petronio wrote: post #360
Bombthecat wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sad though. This means that most students never earn more than 25k per year, even if they studied..

Actually, if we assume the previously posted £10,000/year, and three years for a Bachelor's they'd have a £30,000 debt. Assuming no interest, since it's only the amount over £25,725 that's taxed they'd have to average £25,725+((£30,000/30)/.09), or £36,836.11, over 30 years to fully repay, which I think is a much more reasonable number outside of HCOL areas. I'm not sure if they account for inflation or have any fixe…

They have above interest earnings for higher earners, and a lot of students take out loans of nearly twice the size to pay living costs, so a lot of people whose earnings average over £40k in 2019 money won't pay all their loans back either.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#409

Post by testis321 »

pgeorgi wrote: post #379
gwright wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

The difference is that the other 7.5% (plus a few more such line items) don't appear in your progressive tax rate, and they also don't appear in "how much do you earn in country X" comparisons.

In most countries, even the first 7.5% don't apear in your tax rate.

But still, if you count everything together, for a 2keur net paycheck you have to charge your customers 4.8k in my country (slovenia), and the government takes 2.8k (social benefits, pension, health, income tax and VAT). Say what you want, but 4.8k->2k is a huge amount of taxes.

Post reply on HN