Just to give you an example, I work for a tiny software firm of 40 people and my cost for the Cadillac of health insurance is 3$ a month. Each doctor's visit is 40$ but besides that everything is covered. I make 155k USD a year.

Damn, I want your health plan. Mine is more expensive, and it sounds like not as good.

Yeah, it was one of the main reasons I signed up with my company. They don't pay the most but they care for us more than any comapny I've worked for in my life.

The point is that the average American dev takes home a lot more cash than European devs.

Whether e.g. healthcare comes out of my paycheck separately or is paid via higher taxes is just accounting.

My original point was about avoiding the reductive view of comparing one country against another solely by how much cash one takes home for a given job.

Just on healthcare, did you know your per capita spending is 2 to 3 times higher?

https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

I mean by that standard we pay basically zero—employer covers the premiums.

You could argue that's still paying for it and the premium will be high compared to equivalent national insurance payments here.