Comment by netmonk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by netmonk | Hacker News Reader

Can you also relate the median wage in Croatia ? And how much taxes are taken by socialistical system on the salary ?

I can understand the surprise of this person to discover that 36$ is not much compared to what she could expect in America for similar treatment.

Most of american i meet are very surprised by the price of healthcare in France too, but they tend to forget that State is taking aroung 60% of income.

As i am my own boss in a IT consultant job, in France, for 4500euros net (4325 euros on my private bank account), i will spend around 9000 euros from my company (4325 transfered on my private bank account, and 4675 on monthly taxes like healthcare, unemployement care, retirement care....).

And on those 4325euros monthly, i will be also taxed at end of year depending on my total yearly income and my family situation (married, single, children or not...).

So basically i should earn 9000x12= 108000 euros per year , but in reality i get 4325x12= 51900 euros per year (minus private taxes like house taxes, and final income taxes which is around 3000/year). So my real earning is around 48900euros yearly.

I also forget that i will have to pay a private supplementary healthcare insurance, cause on those 36$, State will just reimburse me 21$, so private insurance costs more than 100euros/month to sometime get those remaining 15euros back.

So 48900 euros/year for a 40yo IT guy, working in devops (married and father of two )...ask yourself why all young talents in France are going to work in Silicon Valley... This is not even the wage of an internship at google or faceboo

Now if you were in the US, you'd get much more money from the start on you bank account. But you'll have to individually pay for health insurance, and individually plan for retirement. In the end it will cost you exactly as much, but instead of collective bargaining you're on your own against big insurance companies. Unsurprisingly, this rarely ends well for the lone individual against corporate behemoths.

Well, just to illustrate, there is a private insurance company from Uk called Amariz, very famous in europe. I asked to a proposal for my familly (2 adults/2 children). And where i was asked around 40k euros/year in healthcare taxes, it will cost me around 7k at better level of coverage and service. But even if european law are allowing it, leaving state insurance company in favor of private in France expose individuals to justice harrassment...So most of business owner prefer to stay away from trouble and pay far biggest fee.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rev...

Would imply that Croatia is not nearly as heavily taxed as e.g. France, or the Nordics.

The comments in the Reddit thread imply that a doctor might earn 1500-2000 EUR a month, so that does hint on the general income level, and does partially explain the low bill.

What is the connection between taxes and low health care costs?

Look at this graph, not all these countries are high-tax.

https://www.investopedia.com/thmb/Y4EFa4HoQXxh4Vbal80eq7mAd6...

I didnt talk about pricing issue..But more than often, low healthcare price is related to high income taxes...

You cannot get paid 200k$/year as a basic IT guy and have free healthcare. This is my point.

What i wanted to illustrate is the real cost you have to pay to get almost free healthcare. And if you followed news since few months in France, you know we have Yellow Jacket movemement, which were at the begining peoples like me, middle class, owner of company, paying huge taxes for really bad public system (ranked 16 for healthcare system, and ranked 35 in school system). And supported a large class of unemployed people (10millions over 70millions citizens) in age of working.

I think there may be a misunderstanding. Taxes may have nothing to do with this specific case because the surprisingly low price is for a foreigner who does not pay taxes in Croatia, that is why he had to pay in the first place. I am not a Croatian but I live in other EU state with similar system - here locals who pay taxes would not have to pay anything.

So putting those figures into a tax calculator for California. First adjust income by GDP per capita (so marginal tax rates are comparable) giving gross amount of $183k, at roughly $60k per capita in CA vs $40k in FR.

Income taxes /social security is $61k. Employers social security an additional 10K. Then you need health insurance at $8-11k for a single 40yo. Property tax in a median 400k CA home is another 4K a year. So a total perhaps $85k/183k a year in taxes an health insurance. A little less but not all that different, maybe 5% lower overall for someone earning 2.5-3.0x median wage.

> Can you also relate the median wage in Croatia? And how much taxes are taken by socialistical system on the salary ?

Croatian here.

Croatian authorities usually don't publish median wage, but the mean wage, so that the numbers can look less bad compared to the rest of EU.

When talking about wages, Croatians are usually using monthly net wage (after the taxes). The mean net wage for Zagreb (country capital) is around €1000, and in the rest of the country around €800.

For this net salary of €800, there is around €700 of taxes on the top of it, so the mean monthly brutto/gross salary is around €1500, so that's €18,000 yearly (around $20,000 yearly), where €8000 goes to taxes and €10,000 is the money that is left for you to spend.

Median wages would be lower than that.

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