And you don't even have a fully free to use healthcare system! How much do you pay for good health insurance?
We have universal health care. So "free" is you don't want private. It cost me "nothing" to go see the doctor. But of course I'm a tax payer so I pay a few percent each year on my tax for that.
Comprehensive private health cover might be say $200/month.
As a Brit we get access to all the free health care too, plus you get paid whilst sick not like back in the UK where there's no pay for the first four days and then £88 a week after that!
We've found that the cost of living is higher in terms of property but things like utilities are cheaper, petrol is half the price! Groceries are pretty similar, we have more disposible income here than in the UK and we were living in a cheap area of the UK.
They do need to sort out the internet here though, luckily we live in an NBN area so the speed is good, still getting use to a capped service though