[Baguette5242]

I reassure you, it's pretty much the case everywhere. I believe that stellar public services are just a myth that doesn't exists (at least in post 90's western Europe), despite the amount of money pored into it.

The problem is not coming from the taxes or the public services, but from the bureaucracy and the insane amount of norms and regulations that are at best questionable, and plummeting all kind of efficiency.

I am from France, and it is a catastrophe to see the amount of administrative bullshit public agents have to go through just to issue a simple document, and I thought it was the absolute worst... till I moved to Germany and I realized it was even worse, thanks god, it's only the spearhead of Western Europe, what wrong could happen... This combined with the overall aging population which is preventing any form of further digitization or drastic changes, the low-wages in the public sector which are far from attracting the sharpest knifes in the kitchen drawer; you have a recipe for nightmare, inefficiency and down the line, hurt economy.

[chimprich]

You might find it hard to believe, but it's significantly worse in the UK. We have significantly fewer doctors, nurses, hospital beds per capita, and pay less into healthcare.

Long term sick unable to work numbers have increased by a third in the last ~3 years: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/17/record-long...

That's surely not even cost-effective in the short term. It would be cheaper to pay to get them back working again.

The NHS is quite efficient I think compared to comparable health systems but it's massively under-resourced.

So it's all relative. It might not be "stellar" from your perspective, but France and Germany have probably among the best health systems in the world. The UK's used to be quite good only a few years ago.