(link...)

At any rate, best I can figure I pay 50% or more of my income in taxes, depending on how you calculate it. But I try not to complain too much, because I have the U.S. government protecting me from those Iraqi WMDs, and my local government picking up my trash and fixing the roads every now and then, and my state government turning out kids who can at least find the cash register button that will figure the change from a $20 bill.

We Americans pay about 18% to 30% of our income on private health insurance (employer and employee portions...our family coverage is almost $1200 per month). We pay a TV tax and a tax on each of our cellphones (look at your bill), a trash collection tax or fee (depending whether you live in the city or county). When my parents get older, I get to face $25,000 a year for nursing home care, and if I want to spare my child that burden, I have to save for that.

If you've ever actually BEEN to Europe and talk to the Europeans, it's clear that they've simply made another decision about how they want to live their lives. You and I don't have to agree with it, that's fine. But you do have to recognize and admit that they get a hell of a lot of services for those high taxes. So there's two questions, really:

(1) Do they get more 'bang per buck' than we do with our system? In some cases, no, but in a lot of other cases, I'd say yes, they do, because the profit requirement is taken out of the system.

(2) If their system is more efficient, would we still want to make those trade-offs? The response to that differs from person to person.

Me, I resent that 20% of my health insurance costs go to paperwork/overhead, 15% to shareholder profits, and another 15% to indigent care for people who don't have insurance, leaving only 50% to take care of me. That kind of pisses me off, and it pisses me off even more when my company's premiums go up 24% in one year. No, we didn't have any unusual claims, and we are in a risk pool- that's what our company hit all small businesses (<50) with last year.

50% of income over $75k? That would be a tax BREAK here, Johnny. Top bracket is 38% + 14% SS/FICA, or 52%.

Apparently the several hundred million Europeans who live in countries with government provided health care enjoy it so whats your point? I haven't seen any recent revolutions based on lowering taxes and getting rid of universal health care lately. I'll gladly pay more in taxes to have universal health care. I hope you never lose your job/health care benefits and get cancer Johnny.