Medicare levy is 2% of income, so you’d pay $1600/year on $80k taxable income.
Insurance in the USA is great if you have a good employer. I pay around $100/month to cover my wife and I, and that includes a $200 deductible (amount you need to pay before the insurance starts covering stuff), $15 doctor visits, $100 for ER, max $15 for generic medication, and a $4k out of pocket maximum per year (after which everything is fully covered). I use a CPAP machine for sleep apnea, and both the machine and supplies are fully covered.
On the other hand, if your employer doesn’t have a good health plan, or you’re unemployed or self-employed, health insurance is way more expensive and the coverage isn’t as great.
The divide between well-off (not necessarily rich, just middle to upper middle class) and poor is significantly larger in the USA than it is in Australia.
Darohan@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
I was thinking about this too - the American monthly health insurance cost is significantly more than my entire monthly tax contribution, including the public healthcare contributions - and I’m not even “low income” by any definition.