The big corporations also don't want people to run small business, because they remove themselves from the job market and cannot be hired / exploited. So they lobby EU FOR regulations that ensure people cannot run business.
Shouldn't any wealth creation viewed positively due to tax, not to mention value to consumers/society?
Or is the view that people on average produce more value when employed by a large corporation?
The politicians are protecting the working class from corporations destroying society for profit. Lets not kid ourselves that the EU isn't endlessly praised for "having a backbone". Universal chargers, removable batteries, open app stores, AI data protections...
The thing is that people generally don't understand that everything in the world is tradeoffs rather than the media/internet portrayal of the world being good vs evil.
The same "protections" also means that the E.U. has no major AI player at all. It seems like all the E.U. can do is tax and regulate what is invented and produced elsewhere.
So? Will major AI players introduce universal healthcare in US? Or is it coming along with AGI which is why it should be the most important to every citizen? Or maybe EU citizens should all band together and stop being lazy and go to having 0 mandatory vacation days?
Reminds of me very old USSR joke which was basically "we have rockets in space, and don't have sausages in stores".
We don't want universal healthcare, 6-month to one-year waits for routine operations, having to beg doctors for prescriptions, massive tax hikes to pay for all of that while disincentivizing people from working and keeping jobs.
A single payer insurance system would be more rational vs choosing the worst of both worlds, which the US built through layers and layers of political compromise. The private alternative is a no-go politically in the western world so why not just commit to doing it properly?
Although of course that would require US states (more so than federal) to be more fiscally conservative, so the tax increase wouldn't be as burdensome... which might also be a no-go.
If you're unhappy with the wait time then get private insurance and go to a private doctor, just like you would in the US. But if you're too poor for that, at least you get something in six to twelve months instead of nothing or bankruptcy. And your insurance will be much much less because you're getting most of what you need publicly. Your US insurance is in the order of three to five times as much as private insurance in the EU, so your taxes are lower, but your costs are too.
The real problem always seems to be that universal health care would leave rich Americans worse off (higher taxes), would likely be about a wash for most middle earners (higher taxes, but none/less health care costs), but would leave the poor significantly better off (who are totally stiffed in the US at the moment).
So, by saying you don't want universal health care you're effectively saying that you're rich enough that you don't care about it, and you don't want poor people to be able to get health care at all, and if some die early or go bankrupt at least it isn't your problem.
Depends on the country, Australia triages so that routine, mundane, non life threatening procedures might take six months (or less) - but even a flat broke unemployed person needing an emergency stent placement in their heart gets that damn near over night with follow up hospital watch and after therapy at no cost (might get a $500 ambulance bill, but that's another can of worms - St John's Ambulance coverage is cheap, supports a worthy cause, and prevents that surprise charge).
From my PoV it reduces stress on society, increases a sense of well being, results in lesser serious crime and anti social behaviour, etc. and means I'm likely getting better value for my tax dollars than I might in the US.
The poor in the US get total coverage for free.
Of course if you are a person that ships 20 packages you don't register a company to do so, nobody will, you just sell them privately (and the exception to sell things privately is quite high, in my country you can do it up to 5000 euros AT YEAR, after that you need to declare the income in your tax declaration but still you don't need to register a company if it's not your main income).
The cost of bookkeeping for a very small business is essentially zero. Everywhere that I know of exempts small business from double entry bookkeeping. VAT exemptions exist if revenue is low enough, too.
Privacy requirements are even easier: don't ask for, store, or process any personal information you don't absolutely need.
Your barber is being dramatic.