I wish more people understood that illness has a detrimental impact on the economy and social institutions. Not to be so partisan but Republicans have such tunnel vision they can't see the broader implications. Same issue with the minimum wage.
I'm not particularly convinced the individualism is constrained to the Republican side of the aisle.
These are what I can find for the effective tax burden on different individual income levels. (There are no household rates in AU). There may be rebates that I'm not accounting for.
Code:
30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000
US 13.45% 14.43% 16.54% 17.95% 18.96% 19.71%
AU 7.47% 11.37% 15.59% 18.41% 20.42% 21.93%
For the AU numbers there's an additional 2% levy towards Medicare, which I haven't added. There are additional levies for higher earners but that's beyond these incomes.
The federal minimum wage is nominally $17.29. (Cost of living is higher though, so it's actually around $11 in US PPP apparently.)
There are still out-of-pocket healthcare costs, but on the whole everyone is covered under the system.
For a 3-year undergraduate degree you're probably looking at about $25K-$30K total tuition cost.
I'm quite comfortable with the latter; I think it's generally fairer. I like that there are social safety nets. I think a lot of people in this thread would prefer this too.
I'm somewhat unconvinced, however, that the US populous across the aisle voting for either party would be for it though, at least among people who actually vote.
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