Hacker News Reader

Comment by keldaris | Hacker News Reader

If that's true, how are they so much more reasonable in most developed countries with far greater government involvement still? Is the US government just uniquely bad at healthcare somehow? Why?

View on HN

By reasonable do you mean 30-50% of your income for your entire life? Regardless of whether you use the services?

No country in the world has you paying 30-50% og your income to health care, it's more like 15-18%

Where on earth are you getting that figure from?

The uk tax receipts in 2024 was 342.2 billion.

The nhs budget was 181 billion. Half of all government money appears to be going to healthcare.

What percentage of people's money is government money?

You appear to be working on the assumption that 100% of the population's income goes to the UK exchequer

… Where on earth are you getting that? As a high earner in a European country, about 8-9% of my income goes on the health service (though that includes some non-healthcare stuff). And I’m an extreme outlier; multinational salary and equity, single, no kids. For a single childless person on the average wage it’s about 2.5%.

What’s your effective tax rate?

It is true. Look at graphs of it.

> Why?

I don't know how other countries manage their health care systems, though I know that the British one is facing bankruptcy, and while health care was free in the Soviet Union patients had to pay for anesthetic for root canals, and bribery was the norm.

Here's a link to what's wrong with the American system:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-ame...

>British one is facing bankruptcy

No it isn't.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com