also, can you really stop working in your 50s when the health problems come and you realize you now need your employer for the health insurance?
I'm not saying the system is great - I'm in favor of single-payer system overall. But tying access to health insurance to employment as a default mindset really has to be stopped, somehow.
14.6% of your wage is the health insurance deductible, 4.687,50 EUR is the so-called "Beitragsbemessungsgrenze", that is the cap from which on your wage is free - it's regularly adjusted (upwards usually).
You can reach that maximum if you are self employed and voluntarily member of the public health insurance - meaning you have to pay both the employers and the employees share. If you're employed, your employer pays about half of it.
Your chosen health insurance can optionally add an extra fee, usually less than a percent or two, most are free.
Also, that "maximum/wage" thing - is that per person, or for a household (spouse/kids/etc)?
The cap is per wage, so every person earning a wage gets the same cap applied to their individual income. (one of the ways that households with a single high earner profit, while two people earning a moderate wage have less). No bonus for kids here, buy if you're member of the public health insurance, your kid is covered for free.
Everyone's paying it, in one manner or another, either through subsidies, or employer contributions, or paying direct. These are the average costs (relative to location and age) for health insurance plans from for-profit health insurance companies.
But the context was with respect to people planning to retire in their 50s. Plenty of people budget for car payments, and they can budget for health insurance costs too.
People often think of their insurance as good (or will respond so on surveys), until they actually call upon it and it evaporates, leaving them with multiple hundred-thousand-dollar bills related to the treatment of cancer.
Well, in all fairness, my and my wife's health care in the USA has been WAY better than it was in Japan. It costs like 20x as much, though. That's my theory as to why nobody in power wants to actually fix the US system. Maybe the system really is the best if you have unlimited money and unlimited tolerance for bureaucracy
I did some work for a small insurance broker - about 15 employees. They provided health insurance for all employees. They invited me to a few company meetings, and the owners asked what people thought the cost of the insurance was, per month, per person. Lots of $100 and $150/month guesses. I said '$600'. Someone laughed, and the owner said "you're close - it's $586". The room went silent. It was going to be going up to, IIRC, something like $630/month, and he was preparing people for "hey, we're going to cover this, but we're probably not going to be able to do much else, or may have to cut back some minor reimbursement stuff."
Maybe instead of trying to paint the problem of american healthcare access as a mindset issue, you can recognize that there are many legitimate problems with linking healthcare to employment.
Why should anyone go broke over a medical expense? Why in a developed country? Why is that only a common fear in the US?
"can you really stop working in your 50s when the health problems come and you realize you now need your employer for the health insurance?"
If you get to your 50s, think you can retire, and don't have a plan for this stuff, you're out of touch.