Costs of medical care

[Guest guest]

Gracia,

You wrote:

>

> I think it would be interesting to compare the cost of your son's

> hospitalization here in US, vs my son's in Germany.

Mike's first open heart procedure in Phoenix cost a total of about $20k,

of which we only paid about $1k. That included the birth and care of

Mom. His second procedure, in New Orleans' Ochsner Clinic performed a

surgeon named Ochsner, was about triple that; my student insurance at

the time covered the first $10k and a portion of the remainder up to a

cutoff. I think we ended up paying around $20k. It took decades to get

out of the debt from that one. His fourth procedure in Boston (spinal

fusion) was covered entirely by my insurance, and I don't know what the

total cost was. We paid a fairly typical rate for the insurance for ten

years. For this last operation, Mike did not pay anything, since he is

now totally disabled and qualifies for Medicaid. I'm sure the total cost

will be six figures.

Perhaps we should consider the whole package, though. Upper incomes in

Germany are taxed at the base rate of 45% with a 5.5% " solidarity "

surcharge, for a total of 50.5% of your income. Then, there is the

Mehrwertsteuer (value added tax), which accounts for a quarter of the

government's revenue, at the standard current rate of 19%. Church

membership will cost you an additional 9%.

Then, there is gasoline. The petrol tax in Germany is 65.45 Euro-cents

per liter. On top of that, you get the value added tax at 19%, for a

total cost now approaching $10 per gallon.

Chuck