On Thu, Oct 21, 2004 at 06:32:40PM -0400, Shawn McMahon wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 21, 2004 at 01:54:58PM -0700, Cometman said:
> >
> > >You'll pay twice as much in taxes, but your medicine will be "free".
> >
> > ..some (dare I say, many?) people in "those" countries feel it's a good
> > deal. Some people in less socialistic countries feel their deal is
>
> Didn't say it wasn't a good deal; just implied that you pay for it
> either way. The folks who characterize their health care as "free" are
> usually trying to make some kind of point that doesn't take into account
> the fact that they're paying for it just like we do; they're just
> sending the check to a different building.
Not necessarily true.
In Belgium, an employee pays 13.07% of his wage to social security.
That's 13.07% which goes off of his or her paycheck. Apart from that,
you also pay 'regular' taxes -- these depend on the number of mouths you
have to feed, but if you live alone, you pay a hell of a lot more taxes
than you pay for social security.
The employer has to pay a bunch of social security, too. How much is
payed there depends on what kind of work you do and how much employees
the employer has, but (a) it isn't something the employee pays, and (b)
the extra which the employer has to pay isn't necessarily linearly
based on the number of employees.
In other words, social security in Belgium is mostly paid by employers,
not by employees.
Of course, that doesn't help if you've got your own business, in which
case you have to pay quite a bit of social insurance yourself; but that
is a different matter entirely.
--
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