Hacker News Reader

Comment by stevenjohns | Hacker News Reader

You're missing out on the significant unemployment in countries like Sweden. There is significantly better free healthcare in Australia - which has an average tax rate of 23.6%.

The correlation of high taxes = better quality of life doesn't hold much strength when you consider that there are plenty of countries doing well without it, and plenty of countries with high taxes that have a poor quality of life.

View on HN

There is extremely significant unemployment in the US as well. It's just not counted. The number of people in US prisons alone adds about 2% to the total unemployment rate. And abstracting a little from the endless and pointless arguments about whether work should be funded by taxation or by sales - and the correct answer there is it depends - imprisonment not alone removes productive people from society, but also remove other productive people to guard them. But of course, if you have private prisons, then the objective will always be to increase sales. For the same reason, paying surgeons by the operation is also a terrible idea.

I’m Australian and my personal income tax rate is not 24%, but 40%. What tax rate are you referring to —- corporate, gross personal, effective personal?

In terms of model healthcare, Australia is not the system you want. Our health system grossly underfunded and ineffective with lots of waste from years of private sector health insurance.

I specifically said average, because it’s important to note that the Swedish personal income tax rate starts at 32% with a tax free threshold of about AUD$3k.

Re: healthcare, you won’t realise how good you have it until you try to go to a Swedish hospital with a torn ACL only for a nurse to diagnose you with a cramp, direct you to take paracetamol and refuse to let you see a doctor. Or when you try to have a blood test done and realise it’s not a 24 hour turn around, but a 24 day turn around if you’re lucky with 1-2 years minimum to see a specialist.

Yeah but we need more than a few instances to draw general conclusions. Is there like, a study?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com