this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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For reference, in Belgium state mandated health care (RSZ) is about 40% of your income (1).
There is copay on things like glasses, hospitalization costs, ... With additional (optional) insurance for those.
I feel like there's a lot of misinformation spread around EU health insurance.
Readers added the following context:
Untrue.
It's 13%.
It covers both heath care and social care (old people's homes and help for elderly or disabled).
You're referring to
From source (1), I assume.
It's true that the other 27% is taken from your wages by your employer, before it reaches you. But what's the difference? Is it not still your take home pay that gets reduced by 40% for the purposes of health insurance?
It really sounds like you have no idea what the difference is between employee contributions and employer contributions.
Answer me this. If you get a company car for free, do you complain that your salary was reduced?
I have been in that situation. As I didn't need a car, I asked for and indeed got a raise instead.
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 exactly the point I'm trying to communicate.
Americans grossly underestimate the costs of the system ("5% of your paycheque", "free", ...).
I'm not saying it's better. I'm not saying it's worse. I'm saying that statements like that are factually incorrect. There seems to be a naievity or worse, propagandic force in statements like that.
Really?! Weird.
Whilst paying roughly twice as much as people in other wealthy nations.
Yes. Please revisit the original comment that started the whole train.
Take a look at all the comments inbetween.
Talking about apples wasn't my idea. I never even argued against state ran healthcare.
I simply, from experience, and with sources, stated that "free healthcare" or "5% of your paycheque" is grossly incorrect.
Did I ever say 5%? In Belgium it turns out it's 13% of your paycheck flat payment and then it's free. Sounds like a massive, massive win. We should do like them for healthcare.
Sure, do so!
I live in Belgium. A copy-paste of that system would also increase costs for employing people and lower wages. As I tried to explain.
Well, let's again look at how this conversation started. Look at the posted image. That was the statement I was referring to when saying 5% is unrealistic. A fabrication or lie.
But your idea that companies pay people more when they pay less taxes is hopelessly naive. If you cut employer contributions in Belgium, the people who would get the spare money would be the shareholders and the ceos.
Famously McDonald's and the pile pay their employees far, far less in America than in Scandinavia, but the burgers are very very similar in price.
If you reduce costs for employers, wages do not go up. There is zero wage inflationary pressure from increased profits. How can you not know this?
You foolishly seem to believe that wages are held down by taxes! No! Wages are held down by ceos and shareholders!
I understand you feel this way.
Yet I experienced this first hand. In this comment section there was the example of a company car. As in: I was offered a company car (employer pays). I'd rather have the cash. I refused the car, got the cash. This really happens. Not every employer is evil corp.
They look at the budget: we want to spend X on this employee. If we have to spend 27% on employees RSZ, then (1-.27) remains for gross wages.
We have different employment experiences. I changed my situation by switching employers to a place I like. You're trying to change your situation by loudly shouting on social media in the hopes of political change?
I didn't think I was shouting loudly at all. I'm no more shouting about socialised healthcare than you're shouting about low taxes.
Lol. That is not how budget meetings work. That isn't even how salary negotiations work.
You persist in believing that if costs reduce, wages rise, but this is not how businesses operate. When costs decrease, profits rise, executive bonuses rise, but it's really rare that employee pay rises as a result, and as I keep telling you, it's hopelessly naive to think that a massive tax cut for businesses would result in a massive pay rise for employees.
On the other hand, socialised healthcare is about half the cost as privatised healthcare is in the USA. You save on your taxes, but then you pay twice as much to health insurance companies who then refuse to treat you anyway. It's really, really, really bad value for money and horrendously expensive.
What can I tell you, other than it does work like that for me?
It seems you're very unhappy at your place of employment. What efforts have you made to improve that?
I'm not unhappy at my place of employment, I'm mildly unhappy that ceos and shareholders extract the vast majority of the profits from the efforts of workers and want governments to increase taxes and share wealth more equitably.
You seem unhappy with your country. What steps have you taken to emigrate to the USA?
I'm merely unhappy with falsehoods, and this is one I have first hand experience in.
We still have communist parties, that experience the same angst you have, here, too, you know.
The way I lessened my issues is by becoming self employed. I've made no effort to move to us, and never planned to. Things became much easier once I did so.
OK.
It is not, by the way, false to say that employee deductions are subtracted from wages and that employer deductions are subtracted from profits, that is true both de facto and de jure.
It is false to say that reducing employer taxes increases employee wages, that isn't how the world works. It just increases profits and reduces the amount the government spends on things such as public transport, cycling infrastructure, roads, railways, hospitals, schools, social care, those sorts of things.
If you're self employed, you may well look at the entirety of the money coming in and consider it potential wages, want to pay all of that to yourself, but deduct any costs you are obliged to and in that sense there's no real difference between a cost and a salary reduction, but that's because you're self employed, it's really not how most employers work.
Usually, employers have zero desire to give all the money to the employees or to maximise wages, in fact, probably a majority of large employers prefer to minimise wages.
Ok.
(Just to let you know, I realised I wanted to say more and have substantially edited my post. You may want to re-read it.)
Tell me you don't understand taxation without telling me you don't understand taxation.
Please, explain
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.
i gotta say, hats off, this is some expert trolling
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.
If that's the case for you, it might be good for you to change jobs or become self-employed? That way you're free from what you perceive as evil corp?
I'm not actually Johnny. I'm David, and I don't speak French or Walloon or Frisian or Flemish well enough to live in Belgium. It's just how most shareholder or private equity owned companies in the USA are run.
I actually think that the solution isn't so much a change of career for me, but an increase in the taxes on the shareholders and chief executives to find better health care, better education, better social care, better care for veterans, better infrastructure etc etc etc, so that we all benefit from the profits rather than just the already wealthy folks.
So no, I don't get cross with the government for taking the shareholders' money, I get cross with the shareholders for taking my money. I think that's far more rational.
Why rather be cross, than change your situation?
Why rather pay twice for healthcare when you can pay once, it doesn't matter what illness you get, and no one has to remortgage their house to keep their relative alive?
One does not exclude the other?
When I see the job with my skills where the ceo doesn't take most of the money I earn, I'll be sure to apply and look up my old comments to tell you that you were right, but I would still want socialised healthcare because it's much cheaper and has better health outcomes and I won't have to remortgage the house if my Mum needs expensive treatment.
Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see any mention of healthcare costs on the source you gave.
Per the OECD website, per capita healthcare spending in the US is the worst amongst the entire OECD, and Belgium is comparable to France and Sweden. Not the best, but far from the worst (and not accounting for better healthcare outcomes).
I don't have sources on hand, but the US in general rates the worst for healthcare outcomes too.
that's because they cite incorrect data.
"social security" is not health care fund; and 40% is employer and employee combined (employee only is ~ 13%) contribution. social security is pensions, survivor benefits, unemployment, sickness and maternity leave, etc.
employee share of contribution to public health insurance fund is (iirc) only 3.55%
If your employer takes part of your wages and pays, or you take part of your wages and pay. What's the difference?
The "employee share" vs "employer share" makes no difference?
Even if you were making the point you think you're making... The US already has employer-contributions to health care, and its a whole lot. My experience likely isn't the norm as I'm in a union position, but my employer foots the bill for something like ~70% of my health insurance. They take a chunk out of my paycheck, but it's still only maybe 1/3 of what it actually costs.
So if you want it to be a fair comparison, you're going to have to take that into consideration too. If you're suggesting that an employer in an EU nation will pay someone less because they have to shell out to contribute to their health insurance, then you need to realize that the same conditions are present here.
It's not really fair to only include that on one side of the equation, when it is happening on both sides.
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.