That’s almost as sad as they guy who installed a plug receptacle onto his lamp and then plugged the lamp into it thinking it would light up. Truth is often more bizarre than fiction.
Yes their taxes are higher Their infant mortality rate is much lower than ours, as just one example of their medical care that is better than ours in most (all?) parts. They have cars and access to good high speed rail transportation etc. etc. If one visits any of the big resort areas in Spain, Italy, France, etc. etc. one will notice German visitors. I remember visiting the Everglades and encountering more German speakers than English. Yes, their taxes are high.
You need to adjust medical outcomes and life expectancy for race. Genetics and culture play a large role. Those of African descent make up less than 1% of Germany's population and over 13% of America's. And other non-whites that Germany does not house have nearly as high an infant mortality rate as blacks do. And infant mortality rates are not necessarily 100% driven by medical systems...there are other personal behaviour factors (like smoking, drinking, drugs.) Mass transportation is feasible when your country is only 135,000 mi². We have 4 states that are each larger than the entire nation of Germany. America is 3,800,000 mi² with a population density that's 1/7th that of Germany (meaning we are waaayyyy more dispersed.) I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I don't want to derail this thread, and it's certainly not a "better-than/worse-than" thing, but there cannot be an apples-to-apples comparison over such things. Our countries are nowhere near comparable. Those differences are not explained away by tax rates.
Until recently, gas cost less than $2.00 a gallon here but even with the increase, (call it $3) a person in Germany would have to have a budget set aside of around $180 a month just to drive 30 miles a day whereas here it would be about $90. (of course, those figures come from an assumption that folks drive a vehicle that gets 30 mpg.) Filling up a 20 gal tank costs Germans around $120+ whereas it only costs me $60 +- It’s no wonder that many Europeans choose to ride bicycles, motor bikes and rail because a lot of folks can’t afford to drive. Hmmm.....maybe there’s something to that. Bike riders tend to be healthier so they might not need that free medical unless of course they get slammed into by a car. Like @John Brunner, no argument intended but merely an observation.
I used to ride my bike a lot. I commuted to & from work on it,,,8 miles each way. That was a short commute by most American standards, and still a stretch for most folks. We are different nations with different lifestyles and different challenges. We don't need to be each other...nor can we.
And there you go. Solutions cannot be arrived at and honest conversations cannot be had because everyone has to lie.