Hacker News Reader

Comment by franczesko | Hacker News Reader

High taxes, but on the other hand you receive: a top-notch public healthcare, arguably one of the best standards of living in the world (good ratio of earnings vs. expenses, strong labor law, relatively affordable rental prices).

View on HN

> High taxes

This can't be the answer since we're talking about pre-tax salaries. On the other hand, higher taxes just mean that the difference in post-tax salaries between Europe and the US is even bigger than it seems initially.

At least in Germany the employers pay about half of mandatory social insurances such as healthcare, unemployment, pension etc.

This is usually not considered when people talk about pre-tax salaries. Ultimately though that’s just accounting, really that is part of the money you earn.

> This is usually not considered when people talk about pre-tax salaries.

The same is true for US (I think - maybe someone from there can correct me if it's wrong).

I've lived in Italy, Germany, and the US, and I would argue that tech workers recieve all 3 of those things in the US as well. Unless you are saying everyone gets those 3 things in EU and not just middle class and up.

What's notable about the EU is that everyone gets those benefits whereas in the US only upper class has that.

Right, so perhaps one hypothesis is that EU tech salaries are so much lower than US because EU tech salaries have to subsidize lower class much more than US salaries.

Even still though, pre-tax EU salaries seem really low compared to pre-tax US salaries

Regarding your first point, I don't really see it that way since the total value of EU tech salaries is probably a drop in the bucket compared to all other industries.

I'd much rather be in the EU making EU wages than in the US making US wages. Europeans working in the US may not be in the same risk category as US Citizens (in the US) as they can always move back to EU if they face a health crisis.

The quality of US healthcare is better for the average person and the waiting lists are much lower or do not exist. Many from my country will travel to the US for healthcare and paid. So many advancements only become available 10 years later. Free health is never unlimited you always have to make tradeoffs.

Where in Europe? Europe (nor EU) doesn't universally have top-notch public healthcare or best standard of living.

Indeed, a lot of European nations have good healthcare coverage (i.e. doesn't cost much), but poor overall healthcare (low quality doctors, high waiting times, poor access to specialization). Some nations in EU are even developing nations with massive ghettos and extreme poverty the severity of which doesn't even come close to the worst states like Mississippi. I would guess mainly just the blue banana[0] of EU and the nordic countries have the highest quality of life since they have access to the most wealth.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana

That's not true, EU healthcare is excellent.

But if you have all the money of the world, you could get an extra bit in the US for some health issues. In most cases, it's not worth the cost.

Even then, some Arab sjeiks regularily travel to europe for advanced surgery. So I think that would contradict the first statement.

Eg. The severely sick sultan of Omar last year in Belgium with a 1700 person delegation.

6 covid vaccines have some dependency on Belgium. The Pfizer one was shipped from Belgium to the US.

Right, I'm not questioning the quality of blue banana or nordic country healthcare. But... are you willing to vouch for the quality of healthcare in Spain or Italy, or some of the eastern EU countries like Romania? Because I lived in Naples and Rome for a combined 5 years and I was not impressed with the quality of healthcare I received compared to what I'm used to in America (for one, doctors don't usually come in with lit cigarettes in america, though I'm told "that's a Naples thing").

Are you willing to vouch for healthcare in Alabama?

Almost every person making decent money I know pays for private healthcare and avoids the government-run system whenever possible [0]. No lines and much better service. When someone gets a very rare disease, people often need to fundraise millions to go to the US. Many kinds of treatments simply aren't available.

[0] for big ticket stuff there's usually no private alternative, if you're dying from cancer you'll probably have to go to a government facility and hope for the best

Legitimate question: are the differences in standard of living something you could buy somewhere else if you had 2x or 3x the total income? Or is it more intangible?

Lol worth 100k?

Yes. Nobody in Europe can even believe that things like ambulance rides could be anything but free. Those stories sound like depressing dystopia from a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie.

For nearly all US tech. workers an ambulance ride will be free or a nominal deductible.

Wait, what? No. That is definitely not true. We have very good insurance, and every ambulance ride has cost a fortune.

You have insurance where an ambulance ride doesn’t just apply to your deductible?

I believe it but have never had an insurance plan like that.

I've had insurance from Arbor (Blue Cross) pre-ACA, from Erin's job at the Latin School (Blue Cross) pre-ACA, from Matasano (United), from BCBS on the ACA marketplace (and now at Fly, but that doesn't matter b/c...) and ambulance trips in all 4 of those, and all of them cost a fortune.

Later

Erin also points out that beyond the deductible cost, your ambulance has to be in-network, or it's not covered at all --- that bit our family too.

I'm a defender of our insurance system, weird as that sounds, but even I won't try to stick up for how we handle ambulances.

The ambulance rates where I live (Vancouver, BC, Canada) always make me blink:

Insured: $50 flat rate, ground or air.

Uninsured:

$848 flat fee (ground service)

$4,394 per hour (helicopter)

http://www.bcehs.ca/about/billing/fees

The swiss right in the center of europe can very well imagine

https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/2500-franken-fuer-62-kilomet...

If you think only about yourself, of course not. If you think about your family, like your children and grandchildren that may not work in IT or a similar well paying industry, then it starts to become worth it. You know they will have an acceptable quality of life whatever happens. Years after your death.

Of course you can work a few years in California and move back to Europe. It takes some courage and a lot of people prefer to not move abroad.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com