[mahyarm]

The sad reality is if your employed, you have good health insurance, and if your not, your visa isn't there either and your back to europe/canada with social services anyway :/

American also has Social Security & 401k (pensions) and health care for the old (medicare) / poor (mediCAL, medicaid), and some social services (public school, various state programs in california)

[kspaans]

Comparing pensions does get tricky very quick. In Canada for example there is a deduction from your paycheque for Canada Pension Plan (CPP) (assuming you don't live in Québec), but many employers will also have matching-contribution RRSP (same as a 401k) plans. So when you retire you get government pension plus private sector pension (which would be a mix of what you contributed and what your employer matched). The UK is similar where you get a government pension plus many employers have a tax-deferred retirement savings plan they will contribute to.