24% VAT (sales tax)
18% employer payroll taxes
10% employee payroll taxes
20-30% typical income tax
Take your American disposable income and cut it in half.
Still worth it for 'free' education and 'free' healthcare?
Also a lot of cold and darkness.
What matters is what the taxes give you. A lot of American taxes don’t give people much of anything. Maintaining the worlds largest prison population is expensive but what exactly does that give the Average American? Worlds largest military also sucks up tax dollars but don’t give any benefits back. Finnish taxes give you education, health care, child care, sick leave, vacation, job retraining, great public transport and many other thing directly improving your quality of life.
Now in a post cold war with the growing isolationist tendencies of Americans, this may require most of the world, namely western europe to start paying for their own physical security.
If I was an American, I wouldn't want to be footing the bill for Global Security either.
Forty years ago the world was not too different - the USSR and East Germany existed and China was not so strong, but the shape of the rest of it was otherwise broadly similar. There are very few countries that were prosperous and peaceful and lightly-armed in 1980 that are bad choices today.
I think if you transact in dollars or any economy on Earth, you probably do.
It is way too generous towards the USA to describe its military as "Global Security". The U.S. military main job overseas consists in defending north-american economic interests by military means. If this implies overthrowing democratic governments or supporting dictatorships, or the inverse, so be it. It is more a like a mafia (that protects the economic interests of the people who support them) than a police force (that is supposed to protect everybody).
There is a deep and nuanced conversation to be had here, though I will say fourstar already made one important point very succinctly. [1]
I will point out that it has been the position of the American people since WWII that we are happy to foot the bill for global security. So while you might not feel that way, Americans feel differently. I'll give a bit of background on how that came to be.
While Hitler was cutting through Europe there was a extensive internal debate in the US whether just focusing on defending the Pacific would be sufficient. During the time leading up the Battle of Britain, we decided the US view of security needed to be global-- if Hitler overran Britain the threat was just too large. It would turn out that the Brits won one of the most significant military victories in history [2], but prior that fact emerging American policy had come to the firm conclusion that we had to defend east as well as west. The Brits handled it, but it was tough to know that at the time.
Since WWII we have not really reevaluated this policy. Some in the US believe it is time to do so and the current election will decide much of this. But in the last 10 years we have witnessed the biggest land grab in Europe since World War II [3], so now might not be the time to dissolve the world order.
This may be more detail than you were expecting, but I hope you found it interesting. The world is a much more fragile place that I wish and at the end of the day we all need to chip in for global security.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25004863
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain#Aftermath
[3] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/03/17/c...
Finland incidentally was a key ally for Hitler in his attack on the USSR.
The US footed a lot of the material costs needed for Europe and the USSR to stay in the fight via lend lease. To the tune of about $575 billion inflation adjusted, and 22% of that going directly to the USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
So, the USSR played a significant role, but where far less effective than your suggesting.
Where did you get this from? According to Wikipedia, and most other sources, 70-80% of German military casualties were on the Eastern Front.
>The US footed a lot of the material costs needed for Europe and the USSR to stay in the fight...
More than 80% of the aid to USSR was delivered after the Battle of Stalingrad was won by the USSR, and the outcome of the war was pretty much settled.
>the USSR played a significant role
...far greater than what you are suggesting.
On the other hand if you look at losses as the capacity to make war then things are different. As a land war the German navy for instance was largely uninvolved so you need to consider how many tanks was a battleship worth. How critical was a lost factory or oil field etc. And in that context while Germany gained some men from their invasion of the USSR* a major goal was the acquisition of oil in the caucuses, because having been cut off from other sources they would have likely lost with or without the invasion.
In the end it was the loss of aircraft factories more than aircraft that really cost them the air war. While we think of WWII as a modern war, Germany used 2.75 million horses in WWII. Fuel, raw materials, and industrial capacity for engines where tight.
*~230,000 of the deaths on the eastern front where originally from the USSR but fighting for the Germans.
The French resistance was again almost completely useless in terms of killing German soldiers. However, they had a more meaningful impact on German military effectiveness as demonstrated by deployment of forces.
To be clear, I am in no way debating the casualty figures, but winning a war isn’t just about running out of people. Militaries trade off between different types of resources.
If you think WWII was settled in February of '43 then that says all we need to know regarding your credibility on this matter. I only mean to be as harsh as is necessary, but it is crazy to be as cavalier as you are being regarding the history of a war where so many lives were lost.
It is extremely callous to Finland to put it that way!
The USSR attacked Finland while Germany and the USSR were allies against Poland. Understandably, Finland defended itself from this attack and entered into a defensive war with the USSR. Two years later, while this war was still going on, Germany attacked its ally the USSR. Thus Germany and Finland became allies by accident, because they were both fighting the same country. As the Russians started defeating Germany, the Finns expelled the (very few) German troops that they had allowed into their territory, who had to escape to Norway (still occupied by Germany) through the north.
Finnish leaders actually served time in prison after the war for their war crimes. I am sympathetic to Finlands position but to say the Winter War never ended is an absurd falsehood. An entire book was written about the period between the wars by AF Upton. Finland In Crisis. It is superb. It details extensive deliberate planning at the highest levels between Finland and Germany for months prior to Germany turning on its then ally USSR.
(Here’s a quiz for you. If it was only a few German troops in Finland who quickly left, why is it they burned so much of the north and center of the country e.g. Rovaneimi on their way out and why did Finland have to fight them to get them to leave? They were dug in in bases supplied by Finland.)
Part of the reason I clicked into this thread is if I have been fasicnated with Finland, especially the last 12 months or so, so you caught me at a time when I have Finnish history particularly close to my memory :) I am reading a book by the same author AF Upton presently on the Finnish "revolution" (peaceful) and civil war. I read a winter war book at the start, also good. That's all my Finland knowledge, beyond wikipedia.
I don't blame you for defending Finland, it is a wonderful country, one of my favorites. I don't think of them mainly as German collaborators or anything. They did have to defend themselves against some pretty terrible USSR behaviour. Cheers.
PS Do you watch any Aki Kaurismaki? Great Finnish filmmaker, lives in Portugal these days.
"more than 400,000 vehicles, 14,000 aircraft, 13,000 battle tanks, gasoline and explosives, and thousands of radio sets and motorcycles, as well as food, blankets, machine tools, factory equipment, and boots. The U.S. had provided 55% of the aluminum and 80% of the copper used by the Soviets."
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/lendlease_h...
fourstar isn't denying that. Yet the sacrifice of the USSR did not entitle them to hegemony over the free world. Instead it merely saved them and us.
This comment is unrelated to the discussion you are replying to, but I'll give it a brief response. First, all you need to know about whether the Soviet efforts in WW2 and the American efforts in WW2 were better for Europe is to consider the outcomes of East and West Germany. Second, I have serious doubts whether the USSR alone could have prevailed against Germany and Japan. But as to whether the US and the UK could have, you need only ask Oppenheimer.
Key ally how? Beyond diverting troops from the southern front to the finnish theater, how did finland contribute to the german war effort? You also seem to forget that then leader marshall mannerheim refused to advance on key cities in the north, such as st. petersburg and petroskoi even though hitler was quite insistent.
Also, East Karelia as an area was Finland's strategic target. Finland hoped to regain what the Soviets stole and to have a buffer in place for the next Soviet attack. Many Finnish people recognize the saying "If the enemy does not come from the East, they have taken a detour", a reflection upon historical facts.
As for Leningrad, Finland didn't really care about Leningrad, but Finland had to do something to keep Germany happy. According to Kastari, Finland made strategic errors in the East Karelia war effort, however it seems that Finland's aim was actually to get as short a border with the least effort [1]. Hence the siege ring which didn't really go anywhere nor do attacks against Leningrad.
[1] Kastari: Suomen armeijan toiminta Karjalan linnoitusaluetta vastaan syyskuussa 1941. MPKK, 2019
And I agree that their involvement in the Siege of Leningrad amounted to a blocking force, but mother of god, that blocking force contributed to an absolutely horrific existence for the civilians inside the city.
One could maybe argue that if the Finns didn't help the Nazi's the Nazi's would have been enable to lay siege to Leningrad anyways, but the Finns are definitely tainted by their involvement.
I'm not sure though what Finland could have done otherwise; if they had not been where they were, Leningrad would have received shelling from all sides, and like you say, the city would have been under siege anyway - possibly with worse consequences, since the Lake Ladoga route would've likely been cut then as well.
Actively resisting the Germans in their aspirations was not feasible, as Finland needed the German military muscle to repel Soviets then and in the years to come.
So, Finland could not not be there, and if Finland had not been passive, then the only option available would have been to actively contribute to the siege and fire at an innocent civilian population. I'm not saying the decision to avoid this was because of moral or ethical concerns; the reason was probably more mundanely a lack of material. Artillery shells and bullets were best reserved for soldiers and not starving civilians in a strategically uninteresting city.
A side note about the "Nazi alignment": if that taints Finns, then it should, strangely enough, taint Russians as well; even the Soviets aligned with Nazi Germany. The secret clause of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact divided Europe to Soviet and German spheres of influence. Then, soon after the pact was signed, Poland took the first hit in 1939 with attacks by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. And weirdly enough there was even a joint Nazi-Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk.
And yes, there is plenty of Nazi "taint" to go around that was pretty quickly forgotten/forgiven after WW2. The Russians are definitely the big ones, but also the Finns, the Hungarians, the Romanians, and of course the Italians.
Note I didn't say the whole DoD budget is a waste, but a huge portion of it is only justified by politics cosplaying defense.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightni...
The classic reference is Steve Blank's "Secret History of Silicon Valley": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo
SpaceX is the direct result of a South African who studied in Canada and came to the US because that's what he wanted to do. The idea that the US "military ecosystem" could claim "direct" responsibility for what Elon has achieved is an insult to him.
Why do you think Elon Musk chose to start SpaceX in the US?
Should we ask the founder in South Africa who was able to recruit the right technical talent and hold a majority share of a private rocket/satellite company while remaining in South Africa?
Exactly my point. If you want to start a company as ambitious as SpaceX, the US is the only place to do it. If you do it somewhere else, you incur serious risk of getting a large chunk of the company seized/taxed, even if you are successful.
I thought nukes and MAD did that.
- Health and Human Services: 1,215 Trillion(27%)
- Social Security: 1,101 Trillion (25%)
- Department of Defense: 658 Billion (14.7%)
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
[0] https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-...
You want to roll in the entire Department of Energy budget?
You want to roll in the entire Department of Homeland Security budget? So airport security is now defense spending?
You want to roll in the entire USAID budget?
I mean, if you're going to do this, do it for other countries as well. Then the US spending won't seem all that out of line.
The DoE budget is almost 3/4 defense related (25B/35B [0])
DHS is far more than TSA, which is only 16% of its budget.
I wouldn't have rolled the entire USAID budget in, but it's disingenuous to not include peacekeeping operations and military aid, which are a big part of it.
Regardless, even with adjustments you've pointed out, the number is well over $1t, which is almost double the disingenuous number that GP threw out.
[0] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/03/f72/doe-fy20...
First link from google: https://chomsky.info/20050601/
Very startup friendly as well and excellent food.
The tropical weather takes a bit of getting used to, though. I much prefer gloomy European skies.
Have to agree on the tropical weather front. As someone who has lived in Australia close to my whole life you would expect I'd be used to heat, but it's the humidity that kills me. Australian heat is like being on a frying pan, Singapore heat is like being in an oven.
Expats can still rent HDB. Just can't buy subsidized HDB.
If you have kids here and want to use the local schools, I would suggest getting PR or citizenship perhaps.
I've paid out of pocket for medical expenses recently. Wasn't that bad overall, and all fairly transparent up front. But am back on company provided insurance now. With gold plated insurance, my raw medical costs are sure to go up, since I don't care about keeping them low anymore.
With any kind of experience, salaries quickly ramp up. For example, I know an unremarkable Facebook E6 with 550k SGD (~ 408k USD) total yearly comp. You can also work in the tech department of finance companies, like Goldman Sachs or some funds.
Take home pay is about 80% of gross. There's no capital gains tax.
(We are looking for someone to take over our lease by the way, as we are moving into a bigger place.)
In the last few years I usually paid out of pocket for any medical treatments.
In many ways it's very different though - while the taxes are lower, its generally much more expensive, especially if you have kids. Singapore is a very dense, packed, hot city - you get a bit of island fever and are not so close to nature. Helsinki is literally the opposite. Singapore and Helsinki are both very, very safe, but I find Singapore has more extreme ends of wealth distribution (very badly paid migrant workers).
Both are super functional though, with good universities, and both great options for running a company/working in tech. I would happily live in either city.
(There's more to say about income distribution in Singapore, but having migrant workers, even if badly paid, is a plus in my book.
If Singaporean immigration was more open, they would have even more low paid foreigners. Making the situation look worse, but be better purely in terms of global equality.)
With kids: I think it's mostly expensive if you are an expat and go the expat route with everything. If you go more local and earn a decent amount of money, the amount you save in taxes should more than make up for some extra costs.
(There's also a breakeven point for expats with kids at private international school, but it's obviously much higher.)
I also think low-skilled migrants are ok, to a degree. Migrants from EU can travel and work in Finland freely without visa. There are many Estonian, and some Bulgarian etc construction workers - but there also legally enforced minimum salaries for everyone. In Singapore there is no minimum salary and that is one of the causes of their extreme income distribution.
> With kids: I think it's mostly expensive if you are an expat and go the expat route with everything. If you go more local and earn a decent amount of money, the amount you save in taxes should more than make up for some extra costs. (There's also a breakeven point for expats with kids at private international school, but it's obviously much higher.)
This is true - but getting a space for a foreign child in local schools in Singapore is really, really difficult. So you almost have to factor in private school fees. Other costs are fairly comparable to Helsinki, except health care, and cars are even more expensive in Singapore - you don't really need one though. But you're right, post-tax income quickly becomes attractive in Singapore for people on higher levels of income.
You are mixing up two things. First, Singapore doesn't have minimum wages for locals. There are much more interventionist for foreigners: there are different visa categories, and they come with restrictions like minimum salaries and various levies etc.
(And that's independent of any critique of the notion that outlawing jobs for people with low productivity does them a favour.
Interestingly, Finland also doesn't have a universal minimum wage. Just like my native Germany didn't use to have one.)
But yes, you are right to remind me that the EU is rather big and has parts that are much poorer than Finland where the Fins might draw construction workers.
About cars: for most people they are status objects here. There's more of a real need for cars for people with lots of kids, but even there ride hailing has gotten much more convenient in the last decade.
About the costs: the well to do foreigners that can afford private schools are also exactly those that the country is most open to offering permanent residency and citizenship to.
Absolutely right that Singapore wants to primarily attract foreigners longer term who won't place a burden on the already stretched public services (state provided housing or schooling). Though even for many of them PR/citizenship can be a long, long time away.
Helsinki should also increase capacity of English speaking private schools to attract well-to do foreigners interested in living in Helsinki, that's one of the things this "City as a Service" plan isn't able to arrange at scale right now - there are simply not enough places since there are only 1-2 private schools for English speaking kids.
The tax situation couldn't be much different between the two, but beyond that I think both countries offer a high quality of living and a vibrant tech sector. Also, for people running their own companies there are always ways to plan your tax affairs, regardless of where you live.
I'm not sure those public services are 'already stretched'. Perhaps at most in a relative sense compared to the rest of Singapore's generous infrastructure?
> Also, for people running their own companies there are always ways to plan your tax affairs, regardless of where you live.
That there are ways to optimize your taxes in multiple places doesn't make them equal, nor even similar. (Otherwise, eg the American corporate tax cut a while ago wouldn't have been such big news.)
In any case, regardless of tax rate, taxes here are much simpler. There's less overhead in doing your taxes.
Some friends of mine ran businesses both in Singapore and in Poland. Their accounting in Singapore is vastly simpler.
> You are right, Finland doesn't have universal minimum salary, but it does have a similar, interesting state sanctioned relic - most industries with unions have a union enforced, national minimum salary for their industry - this includes construction, hospitality, manufacturing etc. It has been criticised for creating lack of flexibility in the job market - perhaps so, I don't have a strong opinion.
I am familiar with the system from growing up in Germany. Alas, I'm also familiar with trying to foist higher wages on a part of the country than the market can support. That's what led to decades of high unemployment in East Germany.
(Though to be honest, the German unifiers were between a rock and a hard place. It was either high wages and people migrating away from unemployment, or otherwise people migrating away from low wages.
Politically, it was an easier sell to convert the East German Mark and associated contracts etc at the symbolic rate of 1:1 (and 1:2), instead of the more realistic black market rates of 1:5 to 1:10.)
> Absolutely right that Singapore wants to primarily attract foreigners longer term who won't place a burden on the already stretched public services (state provided housing or schooling). Though even for many of them PR/citizenship can be a long, long time away.
One more remark on that: Singapore isn't a monolith. In general, the government is more open to migration and capitalism than the population. Many (but far from all) of the existing restrictions are to keep the voters from rebelling.
You have a really open mind if two such different cities are your favourites! In my view, Helsinky is a really nice place, but Singapore is a scary, hellish dystopia.
It's perhaps not for everybody. But the usual complaint from the set of people who have been and don't love the place, is that it's perhaps a bit too boring and well ordered.
It's pretty much the opposite of scary here. I like that I don't have to constantly use 20% of my brain when out in a cafe to keep an eye on my stuff like in London, where things get nicked left and right.
Same thing for me. Singapore would stress the heck out of me, I'd have to constantly use 20% of my brain on whether I can drink that coffee or it is an illegal substance and police will just casually murder me. No way I'm setting foot on that crazy hellhole.
Most other places have illegal substances as well. It's just that the list differs from place to place.
There's no capital punishment for consuming illicit drugs here. That's reserved for dealing. (And in any case, there's no penalty for consuming anything by accident.)
It's all fairly boring. If you are set on wanting to be stressed out, you'd have an easier time complaining about long working hours in local companies. (Working for multinationals is fine.) See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiasu
It's a legitimate position that you want more drugs to be legal. But it's rather weird to clad your complaint in the words of stress.
the locals who really want to do those things have long moved out of the country. those who choose to remain here enthusiastically enforce the order of the country. caning and hanging continue to enjoy popular support.
As for capital punishment: I'm not a fan. But have a look at the numbers on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapor...
Don't come, if you like to partake in recreational drugs.
(Though plenty of expats usually just hop on a plane on the weekend and indulge in one of the surrounding countries. Drugs are no more legal there, but their governments are not as competent in enforcing their laws.)
Couldn't assuming that any individual black person has low income or is part of an "underclass" be considered racist, in the sense of making judgements about individuals based on their skin color?
Pointing to a country’s president as example of how black people are no longer underclass is akin to saying “he did it, why can’t you?”.
Which I think is a valid point.
Could you see an Algerian voted in as President of France?
Recent migrants with black skin seem to do much better than African-Americans who ancestors have been in the US for generations. Feel free to insert your own speculations as to why.
Sorry if I'm being rude, but ... seriously, I would be curious how much you know about U.S. history and current events. What's your context / are you a young person / do you not watch much news, or know much history?
It's easy to say a military is worthless until you actually need it. But, Finland was under Russian occupation for decades. I would guess plenty of Finns wished they had a better military then.
You don't think it possible the US military could be any smaller and still defend its nation? Invading Iraq hasn't really had any fruitful outcomes, but absorbed more than a trillion of dollars of tax payer funds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Aftermat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
Edit: People are getting caught on semantics here. Change 'is under no obligation' to 'not required' if you please. There's no pressure for the US to remain (see comment to reply for examples of the US breaking treaties). Perhaps there are incentives to stay that are privy to policy-makers, but are those incentives what the average tax-payer wishes for?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Ac...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#Withdrawal_fro...
No one got caught up in meaningless semantics. It's just that your point doesn't carry much weight.
'consequences are relatively minor' != 'inconsequential'.
> nor do I see abandoning "The West" to be something likely to be well received by US voters
Opinion. May be right, may be wrong. Trump did in fact try this at one point, but it was shot down by the house. Doesn't really reveal how many voters would support it, though.
https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/01/23/us-house-vot...
> It's just that your point doesn't carry much weight.
That's a baseless assertion until you explain why. Why shouldn't the US polity reconsider it's attachment to NATO? What are the bad outcomes? Bad for whom? And what are the good outcomes for citizens? (eg. say, for instance, but not exclusively, less taxes, or money spent better else where)
What does it mean to the people? That is the central question of democracy. And my ultimate point is that's what should be driving whether the US continues with NATO. And I think that carries weight with anyone who believes the US should be a democracy
It has to be asked, what is being bought by the US participating in NATO? What are they getting in return? And is that in the interest of the majority of US citizens or not?
There seems to be a push from the US and the UK towards returning to isolationism. There are pros and cons to further isolation, which ought to be considered and balanced in the interest of the people - assuming democracy is the overriding principle.
That said, what consequences do you think would be borne by the US if they pulled out of NATO? And do you think there might be some benefits to counter that?
Finnish public healthcare encompasses things like regular dental visits that people of every age use.
Also, those high taxes pay for world-class public libraries and child daycare which the broad public use, even expats in the IT sectors.
So they would only justify perhaps about 0.1% higher taxes?
Or, you just self-insure for dental, if you make a reasonable amount of money or have some savings.
(It's much more feasible for dental where the realistic maximum amounts are still quite small, compared to cancer treatment or similar.)
Consider tax paid healthcare to be a public insurance plan that doesn't need to skim billion dollar profits from their "customers" then.
In general, I'd prefer services with competition and that you can opt out of.
Having said that, Singapore's system works fairly well in practice. But it's not at all like eg the NHS.
We were talking about costs. In the US, calling an ambulance is not guaranteed to be free.
OP claimed that as a young, healthy expat, you don't benefit from a system where your tax payments finance health care.
I showed examples where a young, healthy expat directy benefits from this system, by having medical emergencies that would potentially bankrupt you in the US.
Not sure I followed your point here.
Not really. You pay income taxes in general, and some portion of that funds the public healthcare system, but healthcare isn’t something you ever have to think about in particular.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiar...
Yes, but it's one I hope I'll one day no longer be able to use.
> The literacy rate is 99%
So, there's a decent chance you Googled "US literacy rate" and copy-pasted it from there. I would recommend clicking the actual article and reading through it, because Google's quote is... not exactly representative of what's contained within.
If you didn't do that, you're probably citing this from the World Factbook, who use a definition of literacy broadly encapsulated by "is capable of reading". By that definition, if you can look at some words and then say them out loud, you're literate. Useful for developing countries or historical contexts, but not exactly meaningful in a modern society with many resources.
These days most literacy studies look at actually understanding content, and being able to reason about it. This typically includes some level of numerical literacy (not necessarily mathematics, but e.g., being able to understand the difference between a million and a billion), as well as things identifying internally contradictory statements. By those standards, the United States does abysmally.
It's worth noting here that the U.S. does disproportionately suffer in some studies that look specifically at literacy in a small number of official languages (English for the U.S., occasionally also including Spanish), rather than counting literacy in any language as sufficient. My comments here are in regards to the latter.
> and a higher % of the population has a tertiary education than finland
The people who choose to go to tertiary education in the United States (or indeed any other country) are not usually the people in desperate need of better education. The problem is predominantly in insufficient primary and secondary schooling, combined with a cultural attitude of anti-intellectualism that leads to many people thinking they never need to learn a thing once they exit the school system.
Not a uniquely American phenomenon (Michael Gove's "the people have had enough of experts" quote being a particularly flagrant European example), but one that's uncomfortably persistent there. For example, it takes a very unintelligent person to be in the middle of a global pandemic, yet think that the opinion of a reality TV host is more important than the professional advice of a doctor. Those people exist everywhere, but they exist in astonishing concentrations in the United States.
> I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
My point is that, as someone who lives in neither North America or Europe, if I had to pick a random adult citizen from the population of either the United States or Finland to make a rational decision for me, I'm picking Finland.
It could have been phrased in a much more engaging tone rather than an attempt to "score points".
Speak for yourself: I've never paid a penny for healthcare in the UK, besides an effective tax rate lower than I now pay in the US and the occasional prescription charge where an OTC version of the relevant medicine was not available at lower cost.
Ok, for a (male or lesbian, since you specify 'wife') Bay Area SWE, you're right. But do look at that election map and notice the scores of people living in the rest of the US, in large part voting against their own health-care interests but still. In Missouri the median income is around $55k. Putting $12k of that into health insurance (not health care, but insurance) is pretty hefty.
For such a middle class person Europe is likely to be better / more stable economically. Single software engineer will surely have it financially much better in the US though.
[0] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Robber...
The US has universal Medical coverage for the elderly.
I just have this to say to the folks who despise the era of American power and hegemony, you are absolutely going to love the Chinese one. Good luck buddy posting similar comments about them in that world order.
Indeed. Like less trust from the state in how you use your own money, and less power to decide over what to do with the money you've earned from your own hard work. Instead you are forced to trust that the government is better at allocating that money than a private company.
You effectively get no choice in the matter either, except every fourth year. And that isn't even a real choice, because you're not choosing a better medical company, or a better insurance deal against joblessness when you vote. Instead you're hoping that more than 50% of the people who are eligible to vote in your country, will agree with you that the medical deal or accident insurance (and a whole swathe of other stuff, take it or leave it) offered by some politician that you like, is also liked by them. If not, then you're forced to take whatever the people—who do not have your own best interest at heart—wants instead, because they just happen to be in the majority. On top of that, you're supposed to celebrate it, and thank the guys who forced you to accept what you'd rather not have. That's what's known as a democracy, and somehow you're supposed to think that that is the pinnacle of "freedom"...
No brainer, absolutely worth it.
Even making good money in Silicon Valley I'm perpetually afraid of medical bankruptcy if something were to happen. And the cost of education here takes another 15% off my salary for schools far lower quality than in Finland.
Also California is unique among the states in that it runs a mandatory short term disability plan through payroll deductions but employers are able to buy enhanced plans which cover higher income thresholds.
It's true this cap only applies to in-network, approved care. But that's the same under any health plan, whether universal, or not. For instance, Sovaldi and Harvoni are curative for hepatitis C, but it costs $50,000 for a 12-week course of treatment in the UK. There are 210,000 people with hepatitis in the UK, but the NHS only furnishes 10,000 courses of treatment per year. If you're not approved, you can't get it from the NHS, but you're free to buy it yourself, of course.
First, every dollar you pay does not count towards the insurance company tally of "out of pocket". Often it is a tiny fraction. I've personally had years where my true out of pocket was in the several thousands but according to the insurance company my "out of pocket" was less than $100. With that kind of multiplier you can see one can easily spend many tens of thousands before reaching the nominal limit according to insurance company. How do they do this? Because they can and there's nothing to stop them.
Also, insurance plans have caps on what they'll pay. End up in the hospital for months and exceed the limits and it's all out of pocket, which can be in the millions.
Also, these don't include things like prescriptions. A friend (working at a FAANG in SV) spends about $50K/year out of pocket on medicines for chronic conditions.
https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/benefit-limits/....
"The health care law stops insurance companies from limiting yearly or lifetime coverage expenses for essential health benefits."
https://www.healthcare.gov/health-care-law-protections/lifet...
I wonder what's included in "covered health benefits"/"essential health benefits" and what's not.
Medical underwriting is permitted for Traditional Medicare Part B supplemental/Medigap plans, so pre-existing condition clauses apply, even with the Affordable Care Act.
In other words: once you go on a Medicare Advantage Plan (an HMO) you can never truly go back to traditional Medicare.
If you have cancer or a rare disease (it's not uncommon to have a rare disease--about 7% of the general population collectively has some sort of rare disease) you likely cannot risk being on an HMO if you want to stay alive.
I have 2 rare immune-mediated neurological diseases affecting my peripheral nervous system, and I have traditional Medicare. I require a blood product, called subcutaneous immunoglobulin (administered in that form--it is the only medication that has ever worked for me and has put me in pharmaceutical remission).
If I come back to the United States, I can expect to pay $50,000+/year for my healthcare (mostly due to the subcutaneous immunoglobulin) due to something called the Medicare Part D catastrophic coverage level.
A lot of people, and I mean a lot, get screwed due to the part D catastrophic coverage level. Actually, because of this "program" I never plan on living/working in the US ever again, unless things drastically change.
The parent is fearmongering for some reason. The real scenario is a 2-3 year illness that takes you out of work so long that your lose your employer sponsored plan, have to hoof it with whatever ACA plan you can find, and not have income in the interim.
In the US, they have this concept of a "pre-existing condition", and depending on your situation, a health insurance might cover it, or not, as far as I understand.
Even making good money in SV, you can still end up with a medical bankruptcy (or your family, for that matter).
Just like I won't expound on German healthcare policy, maybe you should reserve judgement on US healthcare policy until you actually know what you're talking about.
https://bankruptcy-canada.com/bankruptcy/causes-of-bankruptc...
I was in the same shoes as you and had zero concerns about it (yes I realized that a very lucky position to be in). Even if I had something horrible happen my max out of pocket was like $4k for the year with no limit to coverage.
If I lost my job, had zero income and no insurance I’d qualify for Medi-cal.
Let me get this straight - you are covered by medical insurance (assuming on "making good money"), and you're "perpetually afraid" that you will be forced in to bankruptcy after being treated for life threatening condition ? Not the fact that you'll first need to have a life threatening condition that requires a huge amount of money to treat, which you will need to overcome to get to the bankruptcy part, but the fact that you'll need to go through bankruptcy afterwards ?
I mean there are ways to hedge against that scenario if you have the money and are really afraid of it - maybe start treating family better and share your money so you have a support network to fall back to if you get in to such situations, or work on building it - going through those scenarios alone is going to suck without it - ignoring social safety net and economic factors.
You people make it seem like bankruptcy is worse than death.
1. Coverage by medical insurance, in the US, does not generally translate to 100% coverage. For a variety of reasons, including coinsurance, copays, out-of-network coverage (especially common if there's some sort of emergency), in-network coverage beyond what's covered (e.g., the doctor says "this is medically necessary" and some bureaucrat at the insurance company says "I disagree"), and so forth, you can have a medical insurance plan and still be on the hook for large amounts of money.
(I don't think you implied this, but just to clarify, "making good money" is typically not strongly correlated with having good insurance. Because of how byzantine medical insurance is, it's hard for a potential employee to figure out what their offered benefits will actually cover, so it's generally not a factor in negotiations at all, unlike actual salary, and in turn higher-paying employers don't have a particularly strong reason to offer better insurance plans.)
2. You can have a "life-threatening condition" that is easily manageable via modern medicine. Take diabetes, for instance - life-threatening if unmanaged, but very well-understood in how to manage it. I have a friend with a chronic condition that requires taking an (expensive, only partially covered by high-tech-employee insurance plans) injection once a month. As long as they take that injection they're fine; their body becomes effectively unusable without it. I know multiple people who have beaten cancer; I don't think any of them would say that the actual process of beating it was easy (or cheap). The whole reason you care about medical care is so that "life-threatening conditions" stop being life-threatening.
Also, we have this pandemic going around which absolutely can be life-threatening, but even among the people who get very sick with it, many of them come out of it fine provided they have immediate high-quality medical care.
3. Beyond the assumption that the person you're replying to is treating family poorly... the amounts of money in question are generally larger than can even be pooled across many family members and large support networks, even if they all have substantial savings on their own. And even if technically I can manage to pay off a medical bill by exhausting my life savings and those of my extended family, what happens when someone else in the family gets sick?
I don't understand how those amounts can be larger than you can pool from a support network if you have insurance. Even if you lose your job/insurance your spouse can cover you ?
A few weeks in the NICU and a couple surgeries and there you are, and there is no 'lifestyle change' that really can prevent that sort of thing.
I feel like if there's a risk of needing to go through bankruptcy in order to have a child, I would be justified in being terrified of it. Childbirth is in fact a life-threatening event, but it's also one a lot of people go through successfully, and you want to end up on the other side of it with enough money to raise the resulting child.
* every legal resident has access to basic health care in their own municipality. A visit costs around 30 euros, max 700 euros a year (Which is a lot compared to Germany, cheap compared to the US). Queues can be long, several weeks. Negotiation skills help, but as a foreigner you might get blocked completely as a trouble maker if you think to negotiate in English
* nearly everybody with a full employment contract has basic health care coverage by their employer at a private provider. Normally you get an appointment the next day or so and you pay absolutely nothing. So most employed people just skip their "free" public health care, because it is worse. Yes, the employement health care is subsidized by tax money (although they are cutting back). This is not mandatory, so the details especially for mor expensive treatments and examinations vary a bit. When your employer stops paying you need to fall back to public service or pay yourself.
* for kids around 50% have private insurance to avoid the queing at the public service
* medicines are expensive compared to Germany, but cheap compared to market prices. Well, basically they are covered by the public health insurance, but the compensation is far from 100%, own contribution max 600 euros a year.
* hospital care is 50 euros a day, max 700 a year. There can be some queues, but for acute cases there should be no problem. (Non-acute cases can be a pain.)
In real serious cases the 1500 or so Euros you pay a year is of course cheap compared to complete bankruptcy or even remaining without good treatment. Being relatively healthy paying several 100 Euros a year is more than you would pay in many European countries with a public health insurance systems.
It is by far not "one of the weaker health care systems".
https://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/health-care-quali...
Definitely not worldwide, maybe not even over whole Europe. I said of several European countries that I have experience of. That's a huge difference.
Remember the old saying: Don't believe any statics that you have not manipulated yourself.
Fact is that even OECD statistics about Finland is made by Finns. And Finns take a lot of pride in having their country look well internationally. The whole 90 day program is such a sign. Systematic doping in skiing happened over decades. After a big scandal in 2001 when it became public results have been much more mixed.
Normally these good international rankings are celebrated by the press. When the first World Happiness Report win came 2 or 3 years ago, for the first time the reactions were mixed: Local social research could not really find any explanation. Happiness is certainly not noted in the country on a regular basis.
My daugther, grown up in Finland, showed me the explanation posted on her social media channels: All those who are not happy are driven into suicide and no longer count.
While I don't say that that's the truth, there is a background to the cynicism: Suicide rates in Finland are 50% [1] higher than in Sweden, which is pretty close. Some say a neighbor country, but that might exaggerated because there is a sea in between.
Remember Nokia being the world leader in mobile phones? Less than a decade later they were out of business. All the time they were hiring those best engineers in the world...
I am far from claiming that everything is bad in Finland. But I have learned that these international comparison studies have to be taken with extreme caution. They report things that you don't necessarily see in your daily life, when you see people just not getting that doctor appointment.
Edit:
[1] That figure is either 20 years old or covers just young adult males. I cannot find fresh reliable figures now. But there has always been significant difference. OECD wrote: "Suicide rates in Finland fell by 25.8% from 2000 to 2011 compared to the OECD average reduction of 7% over the same period, and are still falling. Despite this impressive fall, Finland’s suicide ratesremain one of the highest in the OECD."
What I remember reading about this is that the researchers pointed out that there are cultural differences, so "happiness report" has to normalize for it. For example Americans often talk how happy or unhappy they are, or how much they "love" something, but Finns don't generally think this way or almost ever say "I'm happy (olen onnellinen)". There is also a certain cultural modesty, so in conversations you rarely make extreme statements like "I'm really happy" which could make you seem superior to others, you would rather say something like "things are good". I think what the happiness report concluded that while many people don't state or show extreme joyful happiness, many are more content or in peace with their life and have less anxiety.
That's my personal observation following my friends or family in Finland and comparing that to friends and family in California. See that people in US have more extreme need to achieve, work very long hours, compete and be better than others, be joyful constantly, but also have lot of fear and anxiety, especially when it comes to children. Many of my Finnish friends have both parents working and they have to do very little for the kids schooling. Kids go to the school by themselves and are expected to do their homework by themselves.
In US one of the parents have to be almost 100% homemaker and even then it's a lot to raise a family since you get very little help from the society. They also more have worries and anxiety of their own future and their children futures. Are they safe? If they get sick will do we afford healthcare? Can they get educated? Can they get a job and live good life? Can I retire when you need to? The competitiveness even seeks in to the very first years of the children's life where in Finland you don't even get grades and there are no standardized testing until you're 18.
In Finland, people might have similar fears or anxiety, but in lesser degree since most of those situations are covered by the society.
Namely, 14% for food (both groceries and restaurant, excl. alcohol), 10% for books, exercise services like gyms, culture/entertainment tickets, hotel accommodation, public transit, and over-the-counter drugs (prescription drugs are heavily subsidized by the state).
There's a reason Finland tops satisfaction/happiness charts every single time.
I think it says a lot about the person on how they value these decisions
Yes. The taxes are worth it, for a stable society.
This US 2020 election:
An Associated Press analysis reveals that in 376 counties with the highest number of new cases per capita, the overwhelming majority — 93% of those counties — went for Trump, a rate above other less severely hit areas.: https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-coronavirus...
2016 US election (there are multiple studies on it but there was one from Boston University public health that was the most revealing): Study: Communities Most Affected By Opioid Epidemic Also Voted For Trump: https://www.npr.org/2016/12/17/505965420/study-communities-m...
I am a dual US|Croatian (European Union) citizen. I happily pay Croatian taxes, just for the stability. I don’t have to worry about amassing a huge amount of savings for retirement as an EU citizen and I can work/live/retire in 30+ countries. (By the way, if you save for retirement, in the millions range, it may not pay for your cancer or rare disease treatment, even if covered by insurance, due to Medicare Part D catastrophic coverage level. I know this because my out-of-pocket responsibility for my blood product costs $50,000+/year under Medicare Part D, under catastrophic coverage level. 7% of the general population has some sort of a rare disease and obviously cancer is a common diagnosis)
> Also a lot of cold and darkness.
Well, I’m from Seattle and I have to say, you eventually get used to the dreariness, cold, and darkness.
Yes.
Sidenote: I would have the internet would have made paying for education obsolete... But it seems information and education are not equivalent...
Both are taxing the normal mortals, Finland probably slightly higher.
The public transport, the child-friendly facilities, and similar things make me "happy" to pay.
Lovely city and I regret nothing about my time here.
Cancer already takes all of it here, tyvm, so I'd gladly like to see half of it back.
The cost of having a society is high. The big difference between Europe and the US is that there is some sort of safety net if you become unable to work. Here, you get a cardboard box under the highway and a stern lecture to try harder next time from a 104-year-old politician that's never had a real job in their life. It's good when it's good, but it can get bad fast.
In other posts people are complaining about the homeless people living in SF...
you know how you avoid homeless persons?? by having taxes paid healthcare (there is no free), taxes paid education, taxes paid home support.
So it depends, but as a general policy it's far more sensible to have stability than not.
The question should be whether we could lower those costs (taxes) and still have the free education and free healthcare, and if so what are the compromises to be made in order to do that.
Remember it's not a zero sum game, which means a nation can start to produce wealth or save on costs, bringing up efficiency and lowering the required taxes per person to deliver the same goods and service.
The real problem is corruption, and inefficiencies.
My sib went there for grad school because of the finances & stayed. Thinking about following.
Weather its wort it is still a personal question, but my education was certainly free including my masters degree (I even got paid a stipend to study like everyone else).
There are also quite significant 14% (e.g. groceries, restaurants) and 10% (some specific services) VAT categories.
Most of employer payroll "tax" (~18%) and employee payroll "tax" (8.4%) is actually mandatory pension fund payments and counts toward your accumulated pension.
Many people choose to pay the 1% church tax, even though it is entirely optional (most of those people participate in any church stuff only for weddings and funerals).
We also pay ridiculously high taxes for cars and fuel, tobacco and alcohol.
Additional things we get for our taxes:
* 'free' defense against our eastern neighbor (we only have to pay with our blood, if they ever decide to try again)
* 'free' mental health care and basic necessities for the crazies in the subway, so I don't have to be their therapist and they're slightly less likely to murder me for my pants
* 'free' police force who are respected by the society, rarely need to resort to lethal force, and don't get to keep the money from traffic tickets and impounded property
* 'free' elections, with no armed mobs demanding the vote to be changed to their desires
* 'free' air conditioning, just open a window (also there's no need to pay for sunblock, you won't need it)
It's only dark half the year, the other half is all light all the time.
If you only think about you and your family, in this system you can also be sure that your children will have access to free education and free health care, and your grandchildren too.
It's also nice to live in a society where everyone has access to free education and free healthcare. The inequalities are not as big and it benefits you indirectly.
Yes.
For me? Yes. Without the shadow of a doubt. I'd stay out of Helsinki, though. Too many people! :D
I love Sweden tho, no tax can change that ;)
All that disposable income but no vacation time to spend it.