Comment on This has happened to me
mushroomman_toad@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks agoI know you’re asking about the US, but for comparison:
In Sweden it’s a flat 3.55% of your labor income, so about €100-200 a month for most people, and usually caps out at €200 for people doing tax planning. In either case, it’s paid by your employer so you don’t have to think about the cost.
Out of pocket yearly maximum is €145 for Healthcare and €380 for prescriptions (which was raised 30% this year by the far-right coalition 😑). Dental care is also mostly covered by insurance, but there’s a co-insurance between 50% and 15%.
PotatoLibre@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
I live in Sweden too (not swedish), but I actually didn’t know about the cost up here.
mushroomman_toad@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Yeah, it’s something that people don’t really think about.
För klarhet, fackordet för skatten är arbetsgivareskatt och “pocket maximum” och “coinsurance” är engelsk fackord för högkostnadsskydd.
PotatoLibre@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
Yeah, I followed you there.
Honestly, I thought it could be higher. Then compared with US it really depends of how much they earn, and some has a really high salary there.
Counting on the average I guess welfare does better, but I’ve on my side only Tuscany in Italy (which is between the best five), and Stockholm. Coming from Sicily probably I would have rated walfare a bit worse 😕.
mushroomman_toad@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Yeah definitely, the US system is very dysfunctional. A good amount of money simply gets lost in the bureaucracy.
Insurance companies are massive conglomerates that have to negotiate deals with tens of thousands of providers, millions of products, and millions of customers. Every Healthcare provider needs dedicated bureaucrats that can navigate the sea of paperwork. I don’t have the data in front of me, but I believe the US government pays about the same amount of money on healthcare as the Swedish government.
Any difference between what a Swede pays and what an American pays is just pure waste. A wasteland of pointless jobs.
There’s definitely some fuskbolag and dysfunctionalities in the Swedish system, but for the most part, Swedes are not wasting money keeping dozens of massive office towers filled with bureaucrats, and Swedes have a happier life because of it.