Hours worked makes a huge difference to the percentages. AI said:
USA: ~1,705 hours/year
France: ~1,487 hours/year
Raw money is highly misleading.
In France, you don't pay US prices for daycare for your children, you don't have to save up to send your children to university, and so on.
This sort of comparison is difficult to do well. Say you compare Paris with Los Angeles. Should you include a car since that's necessary in one of the cities you compare, or leave it out since living in the other without a car is perfectly reasonable?
Don't forget to account for real annual healthcare costs, insurance premiums are just one part of the story, but you still need to pay out of pocket for deductibles and copays. It feels like there are so many benefit that we take for granted in much of EU (even if not all of them apply universally) that you have to budget for in the US and they also incur poorly understood but very real psychological cost.
I'm not in France but I graduated from university with 0 EUR in student loans because there were no tuition fees and the accommodation, food, and public transport were heavily subsidized and easily paid for with a part-time job. I don't need a car because we have a decent and safe public transport.
When I took a sabbatical from work and quit my job I didn't qualify for benefits which means that I had to pay around ~50 EUR a month for health insurance. I could continue seeing specialists the same as I did before and I didn't pay a single cent out of pocket all year. I've seen people talk about how they pay $100-$200 a month for the same medication and that's with expensive insurance and then hundreds more for appointments, how they're having to fight insurance companies, scavenge for deals on medications at various pharmacies and it all sounds so exhausting.
If I lived in the US, I think trying to repeat what I did here would've put me at serious risk of homelessness and inescapable life-long debt, especially if I had some bad luck with my health.
falcor84•5h ago
[0] https://mon-entreprise.urssaf.fr/simulateurs/salaire-brut-ne...
mytailorisrich•5h ago
falcor84•5h ago
I mean, I have sympathy for the idea of everyone having full access to public healthcare regardless of financial situation, but don't quite understand a system where you both pay massive taxes, and then have to still pay extra; so the people who need it the most would still be left untreated?
rkomorn•5h ago
- a procedure is considered elective under the public insurance coverage
- public coverage only provides partial reimbursement and the insurance covers the difference
In general, no one is left untreated for "real" (YMMV) health issues and private coverage is more of a luxury perk on top of public healthcare.
Edit: public healthcare is definitely not a "free for all everything is covered" bonanza, which I think most people find logical. That said, one can always argue that some things aren't covered that should (or vice versa if you're the government and trying to cut costs).
mytailorisrich•5h ago
rkomorn•5h ago
(political opinion disclaimer) IMO, that part's basically just "cost-saving" misdirection/smoke screen (eg it's not "public spending" but we're all spending it). I think that lines up with your question about "why both taxes and having to have private on top".
But in general, "people going untreated" is not much of a concern even if, for example, they don't work and don't private insurance.
rkomorn•4h ago