"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:26:03 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
wrote:


"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...

"JennyC" wrote in message
[...]
You pay a LOT less tax than most Europeans .....

But do they get better value out of tax than we do?


For a start, I understand they have better health services in France
and
Germany, and I believe live longer as a result. Especially now
they've
stopped smoking Gauloises all the time.

You can believe what you like, from what I have seen in Germany and
France
there's not a lot of difference. In France you get given antibiotics
for
everything and in Germany suppositories. In the German hospital I was
in all the
nursing staff were German speaking Poles, Russians etc.because the
locals won't
work for the wages offered.

The French are big on suppositories, too!

No, sorry, my all-but mistake: I've looked at the always fascinating CIA
World Factbook*, and in fact the difference in life expectancy isn't as
great as I thought. They do lead UK, but France by a year and a bit, and
Germany by only about three months (estimates for 2006). I haven't
explored to find if the difference by social class, region, etc varies
significantly between these countries.
*https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications.../2102rank.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/s7p5q

--
Mike.



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