You're welcome. I don't see a reason to lie I don't feel it's a good argument against my system. You are however, giving a good illustration about thruth of the central premise of this OP. You are right UH will probably never happen in the US.I do not want to pay 50% but thank you for your honest answer.You really are not getting it Azog. My tax rate is about 50 percent, that's why...... I express cost as a percentage of GDP. You pay x-amount of dollars out of pocket. I pay x-amount of dollars out of pocket. Mine is lower. I, however, pay x-amount of dollars in taxes just like you, only I pay way more. That's why when you want to have a meaningful comparison you have to not only take into account the TOTAL cost but also take into consideration that between 2 countries you don't have the same disposable income.What is your tax rate?What aren't you getting about using data that expresses cost as a percentage of GDP? Yes, we are tiny that's why I express cost like that, believe me in actual numbers American healthcare comes out even more expensive? It's an expression of comparative cost. Our citizen requirements are more lenient actually. We have no cap on asylum seekers nor do we have something like a green card lottery. We don't have a citizen test. What we have is government paid assimilation lessons including free language courses. My wife could have become a Belgian citizen after 3 years of residency back in the day without questions asked.Your country is tiny, you don’t have a military and you don’t allow people to become citizens just because they are born there. Apples and oranges.Not for nothing, but claiming that our healthcare system is bankrupting Europe doesn't make a lot of sense since I think you acknowledge that yours is far more expensive. As for military spending. Belgium spends .9 percent of GDP on the military. The US spends 3.2.Military expenditure (% of GDP) | Data
Belgium spends 10.4 percent of its GDP on healthcare. The US spends 17.07 Current health expenditure (% of GDP) | Data
This means Belgium could spend twice as much on the military as the US, relatively speaking and combine it with healthcare cost and we still would spend less than the US spends on healthcare alone.
It is true that most medical advances are American, I do want to point out though that this not an indication of the US healthcare system being superior. Medical advances can be an argument for places like Harvard but you don't measure how good healthcare is on the bases of how much new shit they invent. You measure it in how those inventions are implemented to make the populace healthier IMO. We pay and therefor subsidies those advances as much as Americans do.
I'm not trying to be arrogant but it seems to me that your objections are subjective.
Most people, Americans especially, fundamentally misunderstand the nature of taxation. To most people taxes is the governement taking your hard-earned money. What it actually is, is a form of payment for services rendered.
I personally am only interest in paying as less money as possible for services. As long as quality is comparable. If you buy life insurance for instance, would you buy one that offers the same payout on death for a 50 percent increase in premiums just because you pay anually instead of monthly? I doubt it.
You are however perfectly willing to pay 50 percent extra(actually 70 as shown in the data provided) because you don't like taxation. To me that is not a rational position. It's not uncommon, and everybody is irrational on occasion but still.