Nobody expects it come without a cost. But I would sure as hell prefer paying roughly the same in taxes as what my premium is in order to not have to worry about leaving the doctor or hospital with a lifetime of debt.

Australian tax rates are not substantially higher than us tax rates.

Depends on your bracket I suppose. According to this, an individual $180k salary in AUS is taxed at about $58k. In USD would be about $44k. But... I pay $12k in health insurance, so they're reasonably close.

I think AUD < USD though, so spending power is probably a lot different. Don't think you can do a real thorough comparison in an HN post.

A US person making 180k is taxed more than 58k if they live in CA. 24% federal, 9% CA, plus social security and Medicare. If they live in SF then there's also a local tax.

And they still need to worry about health insurance.

That's the difference between US and other countries. I make close to that amount and I'd still have to worry if insurance will cover 3 days hospital stay.

Our taxes are certainly lower but I think a comparison of taxes + typical insurance premiums wouldn't look quite so stark.

>> The tax rates are also substantially higher.

We here in the US also pay "tax" for healthcare, it just inst called tax. It is called {co-pay, co-insurance, deductible, balance bill, annual employee premium, annual employer premium}

Lets not kid ourselves, we pay dearly in the US.

The US currently spends more public money per capita on healthcare than Australia. It's not a problem of lack of public money.

>Australia's healthcare system certainly doesn't come at zero cost

It comes at a lower cost than what people in the US already pay.

That's right... if we converted to public health care in the US, you would actually pay LESS money than you do now for health care.