Hi dybdahl,
absolutely agree, and it's great to compare how things operate elsewhere. Here in Australia, if you do well enough in your final year of secondary school, you can do an undergraduate university course with no up front fees. However there is a debt, but this does not need to be paid until you are in gainful employment and above a mininimum income, at which time a portion comes out every year with your annual income tax submission.
It's different for a postgraduate degree; most (with a few exceptions eg. Masters of Public Health) of which require money up front for each semester, or you get yourself a loan.
As to the health system, we have both a private and public sector. The public sector is the american equivalent of having medicare available to everyone, not just people over 65...funnily enough...here it's also called medicare too. That said, our health system has problems and inequities, although we do have one of the longest life expectancies in the western world.
Downside to all this: we pay a little more income tax than those in the US, and we have a GST (like the UK's VAT) of 10%. Our home loans are not tax deductible, however we do not have annual property taxes. Lots and lots of other small differences. |
