Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Yup..."affordable" care means, the people who have jobs get the holy s*** taxed out of them, on one hand, and then get hosed by their insurers, with the other hand, paying for all the "have-nots," so that those of us who actually HAVE JOBS can be crushed under the weight of our obligations.
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Don't get me started on that one, because then the entire Vent and Rant-thread will probably get closed up or moved to the Politics forums. I'm just saying that the disposable income difference between me (having a 40-hour job that pays OK but not great) and someone who has no job is not huge.
It's not that welfare + subsidy in the Netherlands is extreme; it's the fact that you need a job that is quite a bit above average to be able to spend significantly more than someone in welfare or working in a minimum-wage job, because of taxes and stuff you have to pay, for which you get subsidies or even waivers if you earn less.
If you have a low-paying job which makes you *just* enough to *not* be eligible for subsidies, let alone waivers, it can actually be 'better' to be unemployed (or work a minimum-wage job), and that's something I think is ridiculous.
edit: I think having a welfare system is good; nobody should be left to die in the streets if it can be helped, but having minimum/lower-end salaries that put someone who's working 40 hours a week at the same or even *below* the level of someone who has maximum welfare+subsidies is *not* good. It's not that welfare + subsidies are huge; it's the lower-end salaries that are too low, at least IMHO.
(I have seen all sides of the spectrum: unemployment for some months, minimum-wage jobs as holiday jobs, a low-paying job when just starting out, and now mid-range jobs.)