My first response was to say "why is it disgusting - looks ok to me", but then I did a little web research. Nothing, however desirable, comes free. It isn't easy to get comparative figures on tax rates, since different countries tax different things in different ways. I'm not totally confident of the validity of these figures, but at least one site I found says that the maximum income tax in the US is 35%, that of France is 40%, and the Nordic countries range from 48% to 55%. "Conventional wisdom" says that average taxes are much higher in Scandinavia. We (in the US) think that our taxes are already too high, and I doubt if we are ready to pay for benefits on the European model. And yes, I am perfectly aware that you can get a lot of health care for the cost of an unnecessary war.