> With an American tech salary of $200k/yr, I can pay for all of that (health insurance
Even if you can pay for it, doesn't mean you can get it. Pre-ACA, I knew people who had the levels of income you're talking about (and higher) who couldn't buy health insurance on their own at any price.
Some of them could get insurance through employer groups, assuming they didn't want to retire, assuming a given employer wanted to hire them, and assuming a given employer wanted them in a given risk pool. What they couldn't do was buy insurance on the individual market.
I'm also not anxious to take giant salary cuts, but there are times as I get older that the logic of establishing a floor even if it means lowering the ceiling seems to make more sense.
Sure, it was a lot worse pre-ACA. Thankfully, it's quite easy to purchase individual insurance these days (I pay $160/m for mine). We'll see what happens with the Republicans.
More importantly, health insurances do not at all sufficiently explain the differences in salaries. Google will hire you here and give you great health insurance, even though they're also paying very well.
Also, the notion that it requires really high taxes to implement single payer is simply not true. Singapore, for example, has a robust public health system while also having some of the lowest taxes in the world. After all, companies are already paying for insurance here. If we socialized it, I wouldn't expect tech salaries to drop.
- A functioning public transportation system (I was living in a city of 100k people and could get around by bus decently. The worst bus lines still came once every 20 minutes).
- almost free access to culture
- Being able to get your passport done in a week, not six. Maybe not the nicest people, but things happen a bit faster
But I think the core reason you don't see super-high salaries is because the system makes offering absurdly high salaries very costly, instead preferring for more people to make reasonable salaries. You have things like the fortune tax so that even if you don't have a salary, if you have too much money you'll get an extra tax.
It's a feature of the system, not a bug. The glib explanation is France hates rich people. Not everyone likes it but at least everyone gets 6 weeks vacation. And if you don't have a job you can still have a place to live and not live under constant fear of eviction.
If the local charity fete has music playing they need to pay €1k to get the right license (it's enforced), and musicians can't work for free or they could be fined.
France hates lots of things but it sure loves red tape.
Where do you get your passport done in a week? Last time (in 2014) I did mine, it was closer to one month.
And for culture, apart from some museums when you're under 26, public libraries and cultural festival, you have to pay for the rest (theatre, concert, expositions...), even if they are subsidized.
The cheapest catastrophic insurance plans in 2017 in NJ start at over $250+. I'm about the absolute cheapest plan you can find on healthcare.gov. What state are you in?
Even if you can pay for it, doesn't mean you can get it. Pre-ACA, I knew people who had the levels of income you're talking about (and higher) who couldn't buy health insurance on their own at any price.
Some of them could get insurance through employer groups, assuming they didn't want to retire, assuming a given employer wanted to hire them, and assuming a given employer wanted them in a given risk pool. What they couldn't do was buy insurance on the individual market.
We're apparently about to return to those days.
See:
I'm also not anxious to take giant salary cuts, but there are times as I get older that the logic of establishing a floor even if it means lowering the ceiling seems to make more sense.