I just looked at last year’s provincial tax return. The provincial tax was roughly 15% of my income and the province figures that health covers 47% of the provincial budget, which means my effective rate is about 7.3%. The feds kick in something, but not that much and sales tax contributes something but most of what I buy is untaxed. Still, if you figured 8%, it wouldn’t be far off the mark. Look, health care uses something like 8 or 9 % of the GDP and that money is essentially all paid by the government. That’s why I don’t believe those people who figure it as 2%. There is too much (like VAT) they are not counting.
[IANAD] One reason for the high salaries is the high cost of education. From year 1 of college through med school, it costs around $300k to become a doctor. Out of curiosity, what does that type education cost in other western nations? That cost doesn’t even take in to consideration that it also requires a time investment of 11+ years of secondary education and residency before a doctor sees anywhere near the average salary.
The answers to this will vary wildly, but my health insurance costs about 33% of my salary. That amount includes my Flexible Spending Account (FSA) contribution, which is pre-tax dollars I set aside to pay for things like co-pays, deductibles, OTC meds and medical supplies. My employer, as part of my benefits package, pays about 2/3 of that cost. That amount covers me, my wife and 2 adult children and the coverage includes medical, dental, vision, mental health, physical therapy and prescriptions. Annual physical exams and “maintenance” prescriptions, like those to control blood pressure, cholesterol, etc., are covered with no out of pocket to me.
As I said, answers will vary a bunch.
And you pay income taxes and social security taxes on top of that?!?
Interesting. Not sure why, but when I do what you suggested my taxes are more like 13% more for some reason. Still…I’d, personally, be willing to pay 13% more (which would be less than 13% since I pay for healthcare through my company) for a UHC style healthcare system.
In the UK the fees for Med school are the same as for nearly every other first degree university course, £9,250 per year. It is the same for every UK university. A medical degree is somewhat longer, at six years, but the last two are often paid for by the NHS. So about $52,000 plus living expenses. But, they have to work for the NHS for 4 years after graduation. I guess this to discourage a brain drain to countries that pay more. It obviously costs the government a lot more than UK students pay in fees to train a doctor.
Fees for EU students are the same while the UK remains in the EU.
But for anyone from outside the EU the fees are much higher. Around £163,000 ($217,000) for 5 years, it varies.
I’m pretty low income - my wife brings home the bacon.
I would expect a range of 11%-15% for most folks.
And that’s pretty well my attitude - I may pay a little more, but the benefit to society as a whole outweighs that, to me. I figure I benefit indirectly from a healthier society, if nothing else.
And, again, the sheer ease of the system outweighs the scant financial price. No searching for a doctor or specialist “in my network”, no wondering if some for-profit company is going to cover a procedure my doctor thinks is advisable. My doctor decides what procedures I need, and that’s all there is to it. If it’s medical*, it’s covered. Period.
*Dental and optical are not covered in Medicare AU, nor is (for some reason) ambulance service. Private insurance is available for that sort of thing.
In Spain one of the biggest financial divides is “lives in a place with lots of colleges to choose from” vs. “lives in a place with limited college options”, because the highest cost of college is from housing and eating, this second one being something people in their early twenties insist in doing a lot of. Private school fees vary, currently for Universidad de Navarra (UNa) it’s 15204€ for the whole year. Public school prices are the same for the whole country (it’s set by law) and are cheaper, but as the price is set by credit I’d have to do more math than I feel like at 06:27, Medicine is in the “most experimental sciences” group, which also include Chemistry, Physics or any versions of Engineering. Currently the best medical schools in the country are the aforementioned UNa and Granada, which is public.
The old system was: 6 years of medical school, at which point you could work as a GP, then if you didn’t want to be a GP take the MIR (a grueling, country-wide exam), choose a hospital and specialty for your Residency based on how you placed in MIR, 3-4 years of paid residency, congratulations you’re a Specialist.
The new system is: 4 years of medical school, at which point you can do botox injections or cover GPs/peds/ERdocs on family leave, then MIR, then 5-6 years of residency. GP is now called Family Doctor and its own specialty.
So you need to cover about 10 years of housing, plus 4-5 years of fees (in Spain you can’t graduate without passing every subject), plus 0-5 additional years to pass MIR (which may include fees for prep academies); the residency is under the same payscale as any other hospital doc. Same base salary, same bonuses. You won’t get the bonus for seniority (yours is zip), or for “additional duties” (you’ve got none), but you do get weekend pay, long-shift pay, etc.
Norway is similar to Spain. No university fees bar a tiny registration charge, but you still have to live and eat. There is a public grant-and-loan system that is very advantageous though. To the point that financial advisors always say pay off your student debts last, if at all. but the grant does not fully cover costs of living, it only offsets them a bit. Some students work besides their studies, but medical studies tend to be too intensive for that. I understand many students last year is paying work similar to an internship, so you end up with roughly half your cost of living for five years as a debt.
Living at home or getting any kind of significant financial support from relatives is uncommon. Being helped on the housing ladder is far more common.
In Japan it comes out of my witholding taxes. Not sure what percentage it is. But what I pay personally (roughly converted into USD) is between 6 to 10 dollars for an MD consultation when I have a cold /throat infection, then, maybe 20 dollars for the medicines which is about two weeks worth i.e., a full course. I have a massively complete physical check up once a year, by law, and my company pays half, it costs about 200 dollars in total.
One little self-contained anecdote that concluded today for me.
I visited the Doctor in early december. I called reception in the morning and had an appointment the same day.
The doctor examined me, assessed the issue as non-serious but worthy of checking. He said that if he thought it was serious I’d be going to a specialist the next day. As it was he notified the local specialist at the nearest hospital and said I’d have an appointment through in the next 4 weeks.
The letter came through a week later with a January date that didn’t work for me. I called the hospital and got straight through to the receptionist who moved my appointment to a date that suited me instead. i.e. today.
This morning I arrived at the hospital and was checked out, all clear, and back in my car in 27 minutes. I know it was 27 minutes because car parking is free if you stay less than 30 minutes.
So that’s it. Unexciting I’m sure but the point being that I had no difficult decisions to make nor any admin to sort out for any of this other than calling a single person to move an appointment, no forms to fill nor any out of pocket payments to make at all.
That is the reality of the current system we have, not perfect, few bells and whistles but much of the time it is low hassle and effective and because of that it provided no barrier to me going and getting stuff checked out. Had the whole thing absorbed a huge chunk of my brain-time and money I’m such there’d be a disincentive.
Yes, but tough to compare apples to apples because I don’t have additional insurance cost for vision, prescriptions, etc. SSN and taxes pay for much more than health insurance. Not sure how to compare directly as percentage of individual income vs. GDP.
If you take insurance cost as described above, federal income tax (including SS and Medicare) and state income tax it accounts for about 30% of my gross pay. Again, not all health care related by a long stretch, but gives my marginal income tax rate.