Healthcare: Private or Free?

She can correct me if I’m wrong, but for the most part, your wages are taxed and you pay taxes on things you buy, and that money goes to the government, and then the government pays the doctors.

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Oh. So you get paid less, so that doctors can get… Paid more?

Not paid more. Paid in general. Your taxes go to the hospitals being kept. Just like with school. And then when you go to the hospital or doctors, you walk in and out without having to pay for anything. Just like with public schools

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Also you don’t get paid less. The government is already taxing Americans about the same as countries with free healthcare — when you calculate things like household tax and corporate tax and the average of local taxes. It’s just about where the government chooses to put the money.

At the moment, as I said before, America spends more on defence per capita than the next few (I wanna say 5) countries combined. If some of that money was taken and put into healthcare, it could definitely be free.

It’s kinda like health insurance. They take your taxes to pay for the hospitals and stuff, so when you go in, you’re fine and you don’t need to pay for anything. Except I read that the average for premium heath insurance (basically everything covered by free healthcare) is 440 a month on top of taxes and over 1,000 for a family. And that’s without working out how much your insurance expects you to pay out of your own pocket

Instead of worrying about expiring insurance and not being able to get covered if you have a previous illness, you pay an amount based on how much you can afford — tax rises and falls based on income — and get schools, roads, defence etc all taken care of without you having to worry. Why not health too?

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I dont think taxes need to be raised here in US, but I do think they should be redistributed.

However I do think americans pay a bit less in taxes than a lot of European countries.


Not sure what all of it means…
Is this right?

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Ok, I get it now, Thank you very much, these will be bookmarked

That looks about right. That’s tax revenue, so the amount of money the Government takes in terms of taxes if I’m not mistaken.

That would make sense because places like Sweden, Denmark and Finland (I have friends here who can attest to this) have world-renowned health services that blow the UK’s out the water. They genuinely just don’t need to worry about whether they can get seen to by doctors and stuff apparently

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So this tax revenue includes citizens and corporations, totaled so it’s hard to tell how much of the rate is from businesses and how much from people. But it does seem like the US pays less in taxes from this diagram for sure.

I looked up that statistic and found this accompanying graph, showing that’s the US does pay a lot less in taxes on goods (sales tax) but more on property tax (high is not relevant just interesting).

However, all of this is compared to GDP of each country, not per capita. Our GDP is bigger than every one of the OECD countries in the chart, so we (US) have a bigger denominator, thus a smaller rate.

What’s I’ve learned from my research: well sh*t this is complicated. It’s very hard to compare apples to oranges, income tax and sales tax and the other million types of taxes. Who pays more overall? I’m not sure. I can report my anecdata from moving from NY to France in like a year or so. I do know that I will still have to pay taxes to continue being an American citizen, yay!

I read this article: Countries with the Highest Single and Family Income Tax Rates

Anyway, my solution is sorta simplistic but I think that people should have healthcare, for free. Speaking as a kid who grew up only partially insured (thanks to Hillary Clinton and CHIP in Florida I had some insurance as a kid), I was terrified of going to the doctor and bankrupting my family. I didn’t go to the doctor when I had a broken arm because I was afraid of the bill but my mom made me when she saw I was in too much pain like 12 hours later. Luckily, it didn’t bankrupt my parents, my mom’s really smart with credit cards and transferring balances but I don’t think that should be normal. The US has too many billionaires to excuse that.

I think if we can afford to give Congressmen and women free insurance for life (no matter how many terms they’ve served), we can afford to provide it to everyone. It would probably cost us a lot, but save us something since people would stop abusing the ER and get more preventative care.

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I mean, my opinion remains the same as ever. If we have enough money to maintain a completely pointless giant military, we have enough money to give people healthcare :man_shrugging:

I think that there should be a free or very cheap healthcare option, because everyone should be able to live a healthy life no matter how much money they have.

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And I found out it’s the next 7 countries. The US spends more on defence than the next 7 countries combined

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Note that Denmark have the hights tax. but we also others things in tax than free health care. like free university. actually you get pay by the goverment to study. and aid for people with disbilities which is what I live of because I am autstic. I am also in a goverment own work place for people with who cant be in a normal work

and note also my mom is a single mother who works a single retail job. can you migaine doing that in the US . would you be able to provide for two kids like that. because my mom was I never missed anything growing up.

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It’s just an interesting thing to think about. I think it’s great that people can all give to others so that people have what they need.

Then there is the other side that thinks… I can’t afford a child so I’m not going to have one… but I still have to pay taxes to help take care of other people’s children.

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The us definitely spends way too much money on the military.
I think they need to send some of that money to schools! I might be biased tho. :woman_shrugging::joy:

our high tax also pay for stuff like money security if you get fired. you get at least half of your money. until you find a new job, and pension when you no longer work. all pay by tax.

You mean if you get laid off? Like someone who didnt do anything wrong but lost their job? I wouldnt want to pay for someone who gets fired.

sure. sorry we only got one word for it in my language.

Do you know what I mean though?
A lot people here (US) can get unemployment money if the business they work at has to let them go, but I think only if u work there for a bit. I don’t know all the details, but I know my parents have used it.
For example, the place my mom worked went out of business when she was in her 30s and it paid for her to go to college for two years and paid her unemployment money for two years THEN they expected her to get a job.

I thought I’d add this to the discussion section! :grin: