>In the US you can wake up in a hospital after someone rear-ended you, to find you are bankrupt and going to become homeless, even when you had the best insurance.
>unless the stock market returns 8% most people are going to have a rough retirement
Your health and car insurance covers exactly what it says it covers, and retirement plans aren't a mystery. In America you take personal responsibility for things which are done for you in Europe; you can make the wrong choices, but you're allowed to _make_ choices.
Vacation doesn't have much of anything to do with taxes.
...if they were born to parents who had insurance they would have been covered.
>So health systems that don't leave people to die must involve an element of the collectivisation of risk.
...insurance is all about collectivisation of risk, is it not? You are paying in, hoping to never collect, and the money you pay in is used to cover those who did need it.
In America as of 2014 you cannot be denied coverage, charged more, or denied treatment based on health status.
There is no longer an "uninsurable" American citizen.
That retirement plans aren't a mystery doesn't negate needing 8+% returns to comfortably retire.
In New York State, the pubic employee fund is arguably fully funded, and most employees are eligible to retire at 55 with 2/3 of their salary as a pension. That fund requires a 7% annual return to avoid additional employer contributions.
It's going to get interesting in the US, as an increasing percentage of private sector retirees are scraping by on an average $1K a month whilst public sector retirees are enjoying cruises and taxes are being raised (or services reduced) to fund them.
Plus a much better retirement plan. In the US you can wake up in a hospital after someone rear-ended you, to find you are bankrupt and going to become homeless, even when you had the best insurance. And unless the stock market returns 8% most people are going to have a rough retirement.
In the US you're lucky to get 3 weeks vacation a year. More than that, you need to quit your job. In EU countries it's generally 6 weeks by gov't mandate.
The greater taxes are probably a good deal.