[faitswulff]

I don't know how health care works anywhere else, but health expenses can range from $250 for a standard checkup, which I just got (note: it's supposed to be covered for free, but apparently insurance companies are now rejecting claims willy nilly in order to save money) to $10,000 for delivering a baby, to astronomical numbers for anything else.

It really leads to a persistent feeling of danger, so yes, making 100k instead of 40k could literally save your life, or at least keep you from being an indebted loan shark victim for the rest of your life.

[IkmoIkmo]

> It really leads to a persistent feeling of danger, so yes, making 100k instead of 40k could literally save your life, or at least keep you from being an indebted loan shark victim for the rest of your life.

Right, that problem just doesn't exist in the Netherlands.

Basically everyone pays, I would guess, around $150 a month median for insurance, with a standard deviation of probably around $25. That covers anything life threatening and quite a bit more.

There's a bit of co-pay on things like dental and there's a mandatory own-risk of about $500 a year on certain procedures.

If you're about 10% below the median income in the Netherlands you get an insurance subsidy which tops out slightly above $100 a month.

[gambiting]

And also, most importantly, even if you lose your job you are still 100% covered. If you get some weird condition that requires a dozen operations and expensive medicine, it won't have any effect on your payments either. There's no such thing as denied coverage due to preexisting condition or anything silly like that - essentially if you are a lawful resident you can just go to hospital and get treated for free, regardless of your financial status.

[ivanhoe]

But on the other hand taxes are significantly higher than in US, in order to finance that system. It's a trade off...

[IkmoIkmo]

Absolutely.

The point I'm trying to make here though, which I lightly implied, is that regressive tax systems and distributive justice lead to overal higher happiness.

i.e., if there are diminishing marginal returns of happiness from money, it makes sense that Total Happiness in a country is optimised through a substantially regressive system. That's one of the interesting things about it.

[shoo]

> regressive tax systems and distributive justice lead to overal higher happiness.

I suspect by "regressive tax" you mean "a tax rate that increases as the amount subject to taxation increases" . Wikipedia defines "regressive tax" to be the opposite one- where the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases.

Or you're making a fairly non-obvious and interesting claim!

[leetcrew]

I believe NL taxes are in fact regressive in the usual sense of the word. I'm curious what the justification for this claim is as well.

[IkmoIkmo]

> I believe NL taxes are in fact regressive in the usual sense of the word.

They're definitely not?

> I'm curious what the justification for this claim is as well.

My claim makes no sense cause I used the wrong (opposite) word! Apologies, please read it the other way around.

[IkmoIkmo]

Oops, thanks for the correction!

[mbrodersen]

This is the big mistake people always make: focusing on the tax rate. Wake up. The tax rate does not matter. At all! What matters is the end result: your buying power. How much good stuff (goods and services) are you getting in return for the time you spend working? THAT is what matters.

[ivanhoe]

Only if you plan to live in that country for the rest of your life, and you're absolutely sure that the economy will never change, so your buying power always stays the same.

[JBlue42]

Had to get a TB test prior to starting a new job. Everything was covered for me but there's the cost of health care itself in the US plus the little cuts that add up to. If can't get validation, parking is expensive. A little sign above the check-in desk said that there would be a $25 charge to fill out worker's comp forms.

At least they had movies on and weren't blasting Fox News.