[pierrebeaucamp]

> I paid a grand total of ~€500 despite being self-employed at the time (so I only had standard public insurance everyone in Germany gets).

IMO, this is a somewhat misleading statement as Germanys public insurance (that everyone can sign up for), costs quite a lot. Normally the employer would cover 50% of the contribution, but as you mentioned being self-employed that could easily be over 800 Euros per month.

That doesn't quite tip the scale in favour for the US, but the differences between the two health care systems are more nuanced as you're making it out to be.

PS: From personal experience, I find that health care providers in North America will jump to expensive tests or hospitalization much quicker than European counter-parts. I don't know if that's common (I don't have enough data-points) but this could be another factor explaining the difference in cost.

[srrr]

The costs for public health insurance is 14-15% of your income with a lower income bound of 1061,67€ and an upper bound of 4687,50€. Thus the minimum cost is 148€ and the maximum is 656€ (for the exact same service).

In addition you need to pay 3% Pflegeversicherung (nursing care insurance).

https://www.krankenkassen.de/gesetzliche-krankenkassen/krank...

[ido]

If you read down-thread I compare total taxation+insurance costs.

I believe that outside the absolute top couple of % of wage earners German total costs are similar to high-tax US states like California.