If Johnny has 100 apples and the Belgian government gives 13 of them to some folk in hospital or care homes and Johnny doesn’t ever spend a penny on health care, how many apples does he have, and what does it matter to Johnny if his employer who has tens of thousands of apples has to give some of them to the folks in hospital instead of to the shareholders?

If Jimmy has 150 apples and the US government takes 20 of them and he gives 50 of them to his health insurer to pay down debt and then has to remortgage his house to pay for his Mum’s cancer treatment, how much better off do you think Jimmy really is?

“The United States has the world’s highest per capita health care costs—about double those of other wealthy nations”

Congratulations. You must live somewhere with good public transport or good cycling infrastructure or really near your workplace.

But I think it’s hopelessly naive to think that if you reduced taxes on companies pay for ordinary workers would go up, or that they would get anywhere even slightly enough to pay for the sort of healthcare available for free in countries with socialised healthcare.

Like I said, Americans spend roughly twice as much on healthcare as other wealthy countries and their health outcomes are worse than most of them. Who knew that maximising shareholder income wasn’t the best motivator for good, well priced healthcare?

That’s a fair point I did not consider. Thank you.

I’m mainly confused about the “5% of your paycheck” claim made here.

It’s way, way higher in places that do have universal healthcare, all things considered.

People unfamiliar with the system seem to often have unrealistic expectations, exacerbated by political propaganda.