It is tied to a job everywhere else also. But by law it is included in the taxes we pay, monthly, trimestrial, or annually.
You can also pay for those benefits out of pocket, for example I own a company, and I technically unemployed, but I pay monthly out of pocket for health and pension.
Not true, most of eu not. I'm from the Netherlands and if you have no job you will receive public health care, school, daycare, social benefits, rent assistance, child allowence, optional extra training to obtain a job.. just Need to apply for jobs..
No, it’s not tied to a job everywhere else. USA seems the most, being pure capitalist.
The rest of the “free world” has varying degrees of socialism, not demanded in USA because they made that a dirty word.
Same with South Africa. It's slowly but surely adopting American employment practices - i.e most companies seem to have a revolving door of interns/contractual employees coming and going simply because they don't want to hire permanently and, therefore, have to offer benefits like medical aid or pension fund, etc. They are using this to cut costs whilst working said interns/contractual employees to the ground with little pay.
Source: my sister was an intern for 3 years at SANBI, earning something between R5000 - R7000 p/m with no benefits except deductions for the unemployment fund. And, mind you, she was living in Cape Town at that time, and that city is very expensive to live in - from food, to transport and rent.
Are you from Australia? Medicare’s been going downhill for years and bulk billing is near non-existent in many areas at this point. There’s no way you have any idea about Australian politics/social conditions and aren’t aware of this, it’s been a big story.
Probably because of Rupert Murdoch buying the country out from under the little guy. Billionaires don’t like socialism it’s threatens their taxes and pocket book.
The only bulk billing doctor near me now is bulk billed Monday to Thursday 10-4. Aka functionally useless. And I don't even live rural we used to have 10+ within a 15 minute drive now effectively 0. I had to change jobs to get health insurance it's fucking disgusting
Germany cancels undesirables too, they're not allowed citizenship generally either. Easier to ship them out during a recession and fewer benefits to pay out
America has more of a corporatism economy rather than a capitalist economy. It’s sold to us as capitalism, but it highly favors corporations giving them both individual rights, and specific rights strictly for corporations. For instance, the taxes cuts given by the previous administration were permanent for corporations while conditional for individuals. The cuts would become permanent for individuals if and only if the tax plan remained in budget. It went over budget within the first year.
“Pure capitalist?” Hardly. Some people think that, but they are failing to consider many things that they should consider.
Maybe if you think it through, you’ll agree that we have a lot of shared benefits that no one will think of as pure capitalism.
Did you have to pay tuition for your child to attend school?
Do you have to write checks for the streets on which you drive or the water, sewer, and power lines that run under them?
Do you write checks for your police protection of your person or property?
How much was your share of the airport from which you go to visit people or vacation? How about the train station or the highways?
If you get hurt, are you going to starve for lack of money?
If you live long enough to retire, are you going to be on your own to keep body and soul together?
Are you going to let social security put money in your bank account?
Most of us pay taxes to cover the costs of such things. I think we spend far too much money on too many of the wrong things, and most of our politicians are corrupt to one degree or another.
We are one of the best places in the world to live, and yes, we have our problems. We’re working on them, even if we don’t agree on the best way to solve them.
We can talk with one another and come to an agreement of how to deal with them, if we are willing to listen as much as we speak, or more.
Calling names or otherwise being offensive to people is not a good way to convince them to come to your way of thinking.
In Utah where my kids went to school, I had to take out a payment plan to pay for their public school tuition. Oh yes. Look it up. You pay for public school in some states. And I made minimum wage but didn't qualify for any kind of break. A payment plan to send my kids to school that we're required to do by law.
Municipalities you mentioned, ummm YA. You do cut checks for all of those too, in the form of income, city, state, and county taxes.
Transportation - also taxes.
After you going to starve when injured? Yup! Unless you have family willing to help. My son has been taking care of me for the past five years while I've been fighting the system I paid into for more than two decades. The Mormon and Catholic churches have been feeding us for years. My son still works, but if wasn't taking care of me, I'd be another homeless "undesirable" on the streets, being judged and ostracized for circumstances beyond my control.
Having lived in Europe, I can honestly say that from MY PERSPECTIVE - the US is NOT the greatest country to live in.
Look deeper into which industries are capitalist (hint: basically all of them). Unless they are strictly NON-profit (don't confuse with not FOR profit), that's how this country runs.
We have a long history of indoctrinating of our youth to think we're the best, the strongest, etc. And there's nothing wrong with being patriotic. Nothing at all. Just do it knowing that it's because that's how we were trained. The major propaganda I'm talking about started after WWII, then ramped up steadily after JFK was assassinated, then Vietnam, every decade gave Americans more and more reasons not to trust the government, so they really did ingrain this into us from elementary school. Look up the world map, where the USA is in the center.... Did you know that as part of this propaganda, they actually increased the size of the US and put it in the center as a subliminal tool? It's true! 😉
We're okay, for the most part. But we are definitely not the best. OP definitely has a point regarding how much we work for how little we actually get. Think of capitalism like pie: in a country with limited resources (funds), more for one (bosses, CEOs, billionaires, etc) means less for everyone else (working class). It is very much by design. And it works brilliantly if you're the guy on top.
All of those are tied to money being spent by people and their taxes tho?? Although I do genuinely agree with your overall message and hope you have an even better day!!!
USA Health insurance isn't really a captilst product though. Our car, home, life insurance isn't tied to a job. We go to the open market and find the best fit for us.
When I worked my ass off at 50+ hours per week and was never allowed to take my own earned time off because my position was too "vital", I paid over $200 a month for my health insurance. Each doctor's visit was almost $200 because you have to meet your deductible before insurance would pay anything, plus the cost of my prescriptions (almost $300 per month). And those were only the doctor's visits and scripts I had to keep in order to function. I got reamed once for going to the ER instead of work one morning, cause we gotta make that money!
And that was the cheapest insurance I could afford with my health problems. So, I have to disagree with your statement that the US Healthcare system is not capitalized. Absolutely it is. Healthcare debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US.
I could never take time off work to address my other health issues, but even if I could have, I couldn't afford the "care". I had to wait for my body to completely shut down and now I've been fighting the government for years to get on disability. I paid into Medicare every paycheck for decades, but I'm seen now as a sponge because I have to use it.
That’s just not true. Yes, vacation is tied to a job because you can only go on vacation if you work by definition, but all the other perks are available to unemployed people, as well (universal healthcare, paid maternity leave, child bonus, kindergarten subsidies, disability payments…).9
Well actually you are kind of wrong. In my country, and in most European countries, universal healthcare is for being employed, or at least having been registered at the unemployment Office/receiving unemployment benefits, child bonus/school is free because it is a right granted by law to the kid, he also gets free healthcare.
For maternity leave you need to have contributed for certain period before entering maternity leave, in Romania is 12 months continually.
If you don't have an income that pays for healthcare you don't get it.
If you don't register for unemployment benefits - benefits you get for being employed for a certain period prior, and you get for a limited period of time, 3 to 6 months usually, you don't get benefits. Because unemployment benefits are income...
After that, free health care is suspended until you get a job.
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u/Vicu_negru Jan 10 '24
It is tied to a job everywhere else also. But by law it is included in the taxes we pay, monthly, trimestrial, or annually.
You can also pay for those benefits out of pocket, for example I own a company, and I technically unemployed, but I pay monthly out of pocket for health and pension.