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Comment by aj7 | Hacker News Reader

Aha. And now you understand why we don’t have universal healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, and so much cash in the hands of the wealthy that interest rates are near zero.

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I would like to point out that Universal Healthcare would be funded by a separate tax and probably would not come out of Income Taxes.

This is sorta already how it is in the US. While we obviously don't have universal healthcare, or a national pension, we do have Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. These are separate than income tax. On your pay stub, it's the FICA ("Federal Insurance Contributions Act") deduction. There is also a smaller separate supplemental Medicare-specific tax. Federal income tax is a separate deduction.

Wait till COBRA runs out, friend.

I believe this is how the UK does it as well. You pay income tax, then you pay your NHS fee.

We pay a "national insurance" tax in addition to income tax, but this is mainly to cover the state pension from what I understand and maternity allowance etc.

As I understand it, NHS comes from general taxation.

Obviously there is no actual "fee" to use the NHS at the point of use - it is all free apart from prescriptions which are the same price regardless of what you get (and you might get it for free anyway depending on your circumstances)

Prescriptions are also completely free in Scotland. Same for Wales and Northern Ireland, as far as I know.

the NHS is mostly funded from general taxation

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/how-...

I.e. so it can be properly regressive, right?

The US Government is projected to make 3.8T for 2021.

Isn't that enough to fund the programs you are speaking of?

https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-government-ta...

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