I've been a freelancer for 10 years and have always purchased my own health insurance in the US. When I was single, it was only around $150/month (even only a few years ago). This included Doctor visits, prescriptions, and if I had an emergency..I wouldn't go bankrupt.
If Canada and Europe are great places for startups, why do they lag so far behind the US? The reason is because while it seems great that you get free healthcare, as your company grows, it's many more times difficult survive because of the taxes and regulations imposed on you.
An increase in taxes and regulations only helps large companies because they have the attorneys and employees to handle all of the paperwork and can still survive when a large percentage of their revenue is given to the government.
The U.S. does great with these “bet the farm” business models because most of them can fail, and the few that succeed can pay off the capital class handsomely.
Personally, I would rather live in a world where all of my most talented friends can start lifestyle businesses that allow them to do their best work, and be healthy.
The success of startups has some nice macro effects on GDP, but does not solve the problem of labor exploitation that, for me, is just as important a goal of entrepreneurship as making a windfall for the capital class.
What Europe lacks is private funding. I don’t find the article now, but years ago read that there’s 5x as much funding in the US market as compared to the EU market. Seed funding is 3-5x less than you would expect in the US.
1. In the U.S., there are many pension funds that put some of their money into venture investment. In general in Europe it is illegal for a pension fund to invest in such risky assets at all.
2. In the U.S. there are many more private foundations and private universities that have large investment funds, and some of this gets put into VC. For a variety of reasons, there aren't many large private foundations and there are few private universities with large endowments.
If I were doing industrial policy in a European country, the first thing I would do is to start to invest a couple percent of the state pension funds into VC like vehicles. Given how underinvested it is, the returns should be great, and the extra economic activity should help the fiscal health of their economies a lot.
There are several things going on here:
* "Europe" isn't one place.
* It can both be true that there are higher taxes and more regulations, and the health care system is better. You're still paying less for health care as a % of GDP, so it's not like you're paying the same amount, just through taxes.
* There are a lot of other factors such as universities, access to capital, and simply 'culture'.
From experience in the UK Private insurance is not worth it as an employer benefit as you get taxed on it.
Currently I am in Germany, and I had a serious health issue. The sort of thing that makes you go bankrupt in the US. I had surgery and months of treatment for free. I stayed on my own private room in the hospital, and it looked like a hotel room, with a private bathroom. I payed zero euros, this was all on public healthcare. They even offered me a few days in a SPA to recover after surgery. They even funded the metro tickets to go from my house to the place where I received the treatment.
Some other EU member states do not have the resources for such niceties, but you will absolutely get the treatment you need.
I feel sorry for people in the U.S. I read about all sorts of situations that are heartbreaking, and it confuses me that most people there still vote against universal healthcare. This serves nobody except the very rich people exploiting the situation.
I listen to North American podcasts and such, and I am still surprised to hear educated people repeating lies about the situation in Europe, as if we were some almost-communist repressive society about to collapse. The most common assertion is that, after all, the US is the only country with "real freedom". To my European ears, this sounds exactly like the sort of propaganda you get from any authoritarian regime. As if "freedom" is some simple one-dimensional things that can be measured like this.
I think it would be good if U.S. citizens had a more realistic picture of how the rest of the western world lives.
To quote for the non-Hebrew readers: "83% of the people paid for extra insurance in addition to what they get from the government"
Also, it's not "private" insurance in any meaningful sense. It's out of pocket adjustments for exactly the same services. This is what I was alluding to.
Also to make things clear, when you say people in the US pay hundreds of dollars a month, that's also true for many Israelis. The public insurance is not free if you have a job. The more you make the more you pay. If you work in tech it's likely you're also paying hundreds of dollars a month. (don't get me wrong, I think this system makes sense, it's the same as income taxes). The situation in the US isn't great but it's been much better in the last decade. For example, I live in Massachusetts and everyone in the state is required to have health insurance. If you're low income then you get your insurance from the state.