are you yelling at me? ;-)

I have worked in a few other countries, and what I found is that everyone in the world pays out the wazoo in some way or another. The "what you pay" part takes several different forms -- education, healthcare, taxes, etc.) In the Netherlands, education is free, but their income tax is something like 50% and you (at least used to) have to put more than 50% cash down in order to take out a mortgage to buy a house. In Canada, a psychiatrist visit is free, but you have to pay for a psychologist, and since most psychiatrists these days don't do counselling, you're still stuck with the psychologist visit out-of-pocket; and that's after you've had to wait several months to get an appointment with the psychiatrist.