Why Should Americans Be Grateful for $137 Insulin? Germans Get It for $55

Re:Why Should Americans Be Grateful for $137 Insulin? German... by ckastner on Friday March 22, 2019 @07:49AM (#19461617)

> For Germany it's around 14-15%

Are you sure you don't mean total social security (of which health care is a subset) with that number.

Because that's how it is here in Austria. The deduction for social security is significant, but health care is only a small fraction of it.

Edit: I checked and I stand corrected, thanks to the replies clearing this up.

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Re:Why Should Americans Be Grateful for $137 Insulin? German... by majewsky on Friday March 22, 2019 @08:08AM (#19461730)

No, the 15% is just Krankenversicherung (health insurance). There's also Pflegeversicherung (nursing care insurance), Arbeitslosenversicherung (unemployment insurance) and Rentenversicherung (national pension fund).

When I take an average salary (3000 euro monthly gross salary) and put it into a tax calculator, the net salary comes back as about 1950 euro, so the different between gross and net salaries is about 35% in that tax bracket.

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Re:Why Should Americans Be Grateful for $137 Insulin? German... by pgeorgi on Friday March 22, 2019 @09:01AM (#19462100)

It's 14-15%, but half of that is covered by the employer (outside your gross pay).

So if you earn EUR 1000 (just to have a nice round number), it's EUR 150 for health insurance, of which EUR 75 come from your gross pay, and another EUR 75 are itemized as coming from the employer.

That makes the 14-15% look scarier than they are (for the employee).

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