Reply #34: Welcome to DU!

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And thanks for sharing that.

And I apologize for the bad typing in my previous posts - I just found my "real" glasses now - the others were "make-do's" that I keep for emergency until I find my real ones.

Yes, my brother lives in Germany. Again, it is "socialized" medicine - they pay huge taxes - but the stuff that really counts is either free or nearly so.

I'm not convinced that if you took a sample of 100,000 people, added up what they spent in taxes, what was spent on them for insurance coverage (through work) that might have otherwise been income (albeit taxed) and what they spent on health care, that they wouldn't be coming out ahead in the higher-taxed-but-basic needs taken care of model.

This isn't "socialism", it's actually a "Keynesian state" (or something - I'm not an economist), but we already pay for other social needs (roads, fire services, police services, etc). It's just that we have their weird opinion that medical care is optional - take better care and you won't get sick. Well, cancer happens, plane crashes happen, houses catch on fire, steam pipes burst at work, whatever. Life changes in mere moments, sometimes.

In some ways, it might make more sense to have socialized medicine and pay-as-you-go fire services. I'm much more likely to be seeing a doctor than a fire truck in the next five years (hoping I didn't just jinx myself with that).

But thanks for listening, lurking, and now contributing! See, it didn't hurt at all!