If we want to get political. My personal opinion/ genuine curiosity.
Healthcare levels are nuanced.
Worrying about it is a separate thing.
Taxes are nuanced and come in many forms (not always visible).
Fundamental rights: You can't have a "fundamental right" that requires someone else to providing you a service. That's slavery in one form or another. If you make something service related a "fundamental right." You must then "force" one person to provide another person with services as a right. If no one wants to provide that service for the rate the society is willing to pay for it then there will be shortages for the service. What happens when the
going rate is too low for anyone to be willing to train for that job? BUT maybe AI will solve this problem soon.
Government control of service related things: If society as a whole wants to agree to pay for service related things and provide those services as a condition of organization of said society then either the government has to pay for it (via taxation) and manage it or private enterprise does. Is the government good at managing that? Some may be. In this case, it seems more like the government has done a very good job of convincing the population that the quality of said 'free services' is good enough from the government that it's citizens don't
worry about it. Worrying about it is separate thing.
An Analogy: In the USA most people don't truly worry about the cost of getting into a car accident since they have insurance. They don't care that is until they get hit by someone who doesn't have insurance and they find out that severe damage to their vehicles/bodily self is no longer covered. Then they have a bad story to tell but 90% of people never encounter that issue. They get into accidents file a claim and a few weeks of inconvenience are back to their normal lives.
Back to talking about healthcare nuances: The individuals you encountered may or may not have experience catastrophic levels of service needed that require extended interaction with the "free" services. For example: I've heard many stories of people who end up travelling to other countries (ie. from Canada to the USA) in order to get proper level of care when the basic level of "free" healthcare is not able to solve higher more complex levels of care required. People without the means to travel outside the 'free coverage" of their home country sometimes die or experience worsening symptoms/pain while on waiting lists since there "
going rate" is too low to attract enough service people to participate/train for those services .
Diversity of health care models is a great thing: I'm thankful that every country in the world doesn't operate the same way because it gives people options. In the USA (and some other countries) for you always have the option to 'pay to play' - You can go into debt and pay for the services you need and live to pay off that debt. That's a better option than just... ya know, dying because your free service won't or can't provide that service. People from other countries can travel to the USA or Dubai or wherever they want. For example: I can travel to Mexico if I want less expensive dental care. If every country in the world operated the same the options would be limited to just the model Denmark or Germany uses.
Tax Rates: Which tax rate? There are a lot of different tax rates. Sales tax, income tax, vat taxes, estate taxes, gas taxes. Those are a bit harder to judge at the tourism level.
Taxation: Many people (right or wrong) view taxation as theft/slavery since it requires one member of society to earn money with their labor and then give the fruit of their labor to another group of people who then spend it however they feel is just. The claim is that is the benefit of living in society BUT most societies don't give people the option to opt out of the model. Example: If you don't own a car and choose to drive you usually can't opt out of the requirement to pay for building roads. If you don't have children you can't opt out of the taxes that pay for schooling. The claim is always - well you still benefit from the privilege of living in a society with those things so you must pay. Ends justify the means... but do they?
3) College education over there is virtually free if you are a local and you are accepted.
Curiosity: What are your options if you aren't accepted? Can you go back and get accepted at a later date or to somewhere else like you can in the USA? I can opt to go back to school/college anytime I want at any stage of life?
In a plus for us, I had somehow envisioned Germany & Poland as "the endless paradise of beer & sausages" . Most places we ate only had 2 or 3 types of beer, and, pretty much the same sausage from place to place. Maybe I just went to the wrong places.
The level of diversity of food options we have in the USA is extremely unusual in most of the world... and even as an American I'm not convinced that having so many options is necessarily a great thing.
4) Tipping had me totally freaked out. You can tip if you felt the service deserved it, but, it's not really expected like it is here in the States. If you do wish to tip, customary is 10%. NOT the 20% & up like it is here.
I hate American tipping culture. I think it should not be a thing. Pay people a wage. Include it in the cost of the meal/service. Period. I wish there would be a big push to eliminate this in American society right along with Health Insurance (a scam that makes Health care services unnecessarily costly).
Did you see many tent cities filled with homeless people?
Every place has it's slums. You just have to know where to look. It's not visible to tourists.
