Listening to Public Radio today I heard an interview with a GM employee getting laid-off in Europe. Seems the European workers aren’t as worried as the workers in the US…
My Reality In The US
Being self employed puts me in a different situation than the European GM workers, but some parallels can be drawn.
I pay around 30% in self-employment taxes and Medicare taxes. This doesn’t include my insurance, which runs more, and since I’m not rich, my insurance doesn’t cover much.
The Reality in the EU
The workers in the story 1 were being laid-off from a plant in Belgium where income taxes run about 50%. That’s half of their take home pay. It’s a lot, but here’s the difference.
For their 50% in taxes they have a guaranteed pension, guaranteed healthcare and generous unemployment benefits. Further, if the plant stays open and they can’t find work, workers with seniority continue to get about 70% of their wages.
So What. That’s Belgium
According to an AP Yahoo Poll 2 65% of Americans want a single-payer healthcare program. Further, we already have a single-payer system in this country, Medicare, and people are very satisfied with it. 3
Considering just the medical care alone, a 50% tax rate (as opposed to the approx. 30% I pay now if you include my state income tax) may not be such a bad deal.
It’ll cost too much, you say? Medical costs in general are already higher in this country than anywhere in the world and rising. And those European countries with single payer systems provide much better care. 4
The View from My Porch
If we put everyone in a Medicare type system, that patients thought was better, and costs less than we pay today, we would pay more in taxes, but $0 (Zero, Zip) for insurance and those paying insurance wouldn’t be subsidizing those that don’t. I’d say that’s be a good deal.
Throw in a guaranteed pension and unemployment benefits like they have in Belgium and I’d say we were coming way out ahead.
Continuing as we are now only guarantees that our government will go broke, and those who pay for insurance will continue to subsidize those who don’t.
Resources:
1 Europeans worry less about GM layoffs — Marketplace Money
2 Percentage of Americans who want a single-payer system. — Associated Press – Yahoo Poll
3 Meeting Enrollees’ Needs: How Do Medicare and Employer Coverage Stack Up? — Commonwealth Fund Study
4 Results from a National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance — Commonwealth Fund
Share:
