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”
Let’s do Johhny’s accounting in the first example:
Johnny works for a month and made 100 apples (Dt.), and 40 apples debt (Cr.) to RSZ.
His employer takes 27 and gives it to RSZ. Johnny receives 73 apples. His ledger reads 73 Dt, 13 Cr.
Johny then has to give 13 apples to RSZ. Johnny now has 60 apples (Dt.), and has no more debt (0Cr.) to RSZ.
Johnny cares because of his 100 apples worth of work, he gets to keep 60.
Lol.
Johnny made 400 apples for the company, who gave him 100, the government took 13 and he got 87. The government also took 27 of the 250 apples (left after rent, heating, lighting cleaning and maintenance costs) that the company had wanted to keep for the executive pay and shareholders. They complained bitterly about how expensive it was and lied to Johnny that they would definitely have given him all of those 27 apples, honestly, definitely, if only the nasty government hadn’t stolen them for a bunch of very undeserving sick people and elderly people who were just making Johnny poorer.
Last year, when Johnny made 30 more apples than usual, he got a one apple bonus, the chief executive got a 10 apple bonus and the shareholders got the other 19.