That is not exactly true. If you factor in state, county and property taxes, the taxes in the US are similar or sometimes even higher than other western European countries (It depends on the income and living situation, you could maybe approximate the average by looking at the state budget per capita (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governm...), but calculating it is far more complicated).
If you factor in insurance, Americans pay more as their percentage of income. In the US there is more private and public bureaucracy in the healthcare system, higher wages for doctors (because they often have to repay their student debt and prices are on average higher in the US) and overall higher prices for equipment and drugs (often due to (often lobbied) laws that favor some US businesses). In Europe health care is treated more as a public service (although there is also for profit health care there). The high profits for US companies in the medical sector have to come from somewhere and they often come from the pacients and the taxpayer, because the US also subsidizes their health care system by taxes. In fact the US government spends more per capita than other governments in the world on health care.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h...
Besides that the taxes in the US are more inefficiently spend than in many western European countries. I could write a long essay about that, but this is just a comment to a hn comment and I already spent to much time on writing it.
If you factor in insurance, Americans pay more as their percentage of income. In the US there is more private and public bureaucracy in the healthcare system, higher wages for doctors (because they often have to repay their student debt and prices are on average higher in the US) and overall higher prices for equipment and drugs (often due to (often lobbied) laws that favor some US businesses). In Europe health care is treated more as a public service (although there is also for profit health care there). The high profits for US companies in the medical sector have to come from somewhere and they often come from the pacients and the taxpayer, because the US also subsidizes their health care system by taxes. In fact the US government spends more per capita than other governments in the world on health care. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h...
Besides that the taxes in the US are more inefficiently spend than in many western European countries. I could write a long essay about that, but this is just a comment to a hn comment and I already spent to much time on writing it.