American taxpayers footed the bill for at least $1.8 trillion in federal and state health care expenditures in 2022 — about 41% of the nearly $4.5 trillion in both public and private health care spending the U.S. recorded last year, according to the annual report released last week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
On top of that $1.8 trillion, third-party programs, which are often government-funded, and public health programs accounted for another $600 billion in spending.
This means the U.S. government spent more on health care last year than the governments of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Austria, and France combined spent to provide universal health care coverage to the whole of their population (335 million in total), which is comparable in size to the U.S. population of 331 million.
Between direct public spending and compulsory, tax-driven insurance programs, Germany spent about $380 billion in health care in 2022; France spent around $300 billion, and so did the U.K.; Italy, $147 billion; Spain, $105 billion; and Austria, $43 billion. The total, $1.2 trillion, is about two-thirds of what the U.S. government spent without offering all of its citizens the option of forgoing private insurance.
People talking about dismantling the military to pay for health care distract themselves from the fact that the health care system already holds all the money that is needed for single payer health-care. Which is what the people making money off this system want. They want people to blame the military, because that doesn’t solve shit.
Though we should also definitely dismantle the US military
Dismantle? No.
Reform for efficiency? Yes.
For example, the entire admin back end can be civil service. (Some of it already is) and contracting needs to go die in a dumpster fire. You’ve got at least 30,000 infantrymen sitting around doing nothing on any given day. Take a survey of their skills and start assigning additional duties. You can always fall back on contractors if you run out of grunts.
Also, for the love of God stop maintaining an entire mechanized army. You don’t need to mount every soldier at the same time. Yes it’s awesome. But most infantry units aren’t going much of anywhere once they’re dug in.
Efficiency of what? Imperialism? Fuck no.
Until superheroes or the Carebears become real we will need a military. The things I mentioned don’t touch the power projection debate on purpose. That’s a whole ideology thing that people need to be voting for and stuff. I’m taking about ways to save money whether we pull back or not.
Ready troops? Care Bear Stare!
It would be awesome.
you gotta source for that platitude?
You think Russia/Iran/China would just behave without the threat of US intervention?
Ironically, without the “bigger threat” of the USA, they’d likely be at odds against each other. China still wants Outer Manchuria back, a region it was forced to cede to Russia back in 1860. Iran wants to be the de facto power of the muslim world, but has to deal with many other muslim countries that don’t want it, plus Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are countries that Russia would prefer to have control over.
Yeah there might be a struggle there for a bit but China would steamroll both of them and then what?
I doubt China would steamroll them. People thought Russia would steamroll Ukraine, it very clearly didn’t. Besides, China isn’t exactly a loved country, it has “allies” that would likely abandon them on the first opportunity and many countries that would love to see them getting kicked in the proverbial nuts.
Any militaristic action of China against any of those big targets would trigger a response from several countries. While everyone will talk peace, in reality a good portion would try to play the war up for as long as possible, to bleed both dry.
Build some god damn trains, subways, and bus routes with the military money. Bing bang boom we’re an actual “first world” country now
They also distract themselves from the fact that a single payer system would be cheaper so we could actually afford more military with one. No dismantling needed.
But if we had universal healthcare, how would all the useless middlemen make their money?
Won’t anyone think of the shareholders?!
They would move on to other amoral enterprises like cars/insurance/real estate/televangelism/etc
Corporations are people. Didn’t you know?
How timely! American here who just received a bill for scoping my sinuses by an ENT specialist: insurance covered $28 out of the $415 procedure. This is on top of the $70 copay I owe for the $195 office visit. So all accounting factored in, I owe $450 for what I thought was going to be $70.
Because it was billed through insurance, the provider’s hands are tied in terms of further negotiation. I would bet if I had gone in as a cash patient, I’d be much better off.
The icing on the cake is that the scoping procedure was non-conclusive.
The US healthcare insurance system is the ultimate way to make money fast, for little effort. As long as you’re on the right side of it, that is.
copay is such a bullshit word, like i’m somehow equal partners with this trillion dollar corporation of ghouls
Try telling them you decline to pay the bill because it’s outside network and see how much they value your partnership.
For those who are interested, the population of those countries combined is roughly the same as the US: 331,137,369 compared to 339,996,563 for the US.
I came here to ask this; an argument commonly made by proponents of the US system is that the population sizes are different.
These stats are easy to find. The US spends a much higher percentage of its GDP on health care (16.6%) than anyone else. The difference is bigger than the entire US military budget. If the US cut its health care spending to the level of France (12.1%) or Germany (12.7%), it could more than double its military spending.
It terms of actual resources, the difference is even bigger, as US-Americans work much more than Europeans. I’m not sure what for.
ETA: At the same time, the US has a younger population, which should not really need as much care.
You mean to tell me we can have better healthcare and more guns, and save money doing it?
Are you running for president?
Actually proposing that would be political suicide.
Only in a backward country like the US it would.
Plenty of Americans are against their best interests.
Which shouldn’t go ignored.
But the cost of the US Healthcare generally shouldn’t be ignored either. And it seems to be by a good majority of our politicians.
IMHO, our population should give us MORE leverage to get cost reductions but it’s just not going to happen. We need a severe overhaul of our healthcare system and the people who benefit from our current system have too much power and influence.
It should though because economy of scale works to make things cheaper, not more expensive. They’re literally ignoring basic economics to make that argument.
Not always, and not that I disagree with your point either. The US healthcare system is so over bloated with administration that it’s likely experiencing diseconomies of scale instead
Well that’s the issue. We don’t have a single system. We have an industry. I also love how that link completely dodges the motivation to raise prices purely for profit. But even with that, we already know the legitimate cost problem is due to multiple middle man companies that provide no value and just take money. And the more care they deny, the more money they make. So it’s a combination of problems. We have to pay them enough for them to employ people to find reasons to deny care.
Thanks for clearing that up. The headline is badly written and needs that information.
I feel vindicated. Not 15 days ago I complained about paying more in taxes AND health insurance. And I’ve been saying it for over a decade. Fuck private healthcare, it serves no purpose for the people.
Yep, this is why I argue with people who say, we should raise taxes to fund it…no fuck that, we can afford it now already without having to raise taxes even a penny.
Private health care is literal vampirism.
Benefiting from the ill health and suffering of others? Yeah that sounds right
Year over year my insurance at huge companies would get both worse and costlier. It was to the point that the insurance that was costing me $200/mo was literally just acting as a safeguard against something costing me $10,000- which would have financially ruined anybody at those jobs anyway
“But where would the money come from?” My ass, that’s where.
I keep posting this article because I’m tired of hearing this statement as an excuse why we can’t do things for the American people.
If it is something that the leaders want they seem to always find the money.
Somehow you have more money for Israel, bailing out banks, covering police with pension, spending on stadiums, buying lavish gifts for SC Judges, and PPP loans but not enough to pay your citizens who built your country and shoulder it everyday?
And as long as we continue to shoulder and maintain for peanuts, that’s all we’ll get.
Those mega yachts and Hawaiian bunkers aren’t gonna pay for themselves!
The American “Healthcare” system is a money-making venture, first and foremost. Health care is simply the structure the corporations use to wring as much money from the masses as possible.
I saw a commercial for healthcare.gov. It talked about how people only paid a few bucks for healthcare. It was all after government assistance.
The fact that you need heavy government assistance to get healthcare shows how much of a failure things are here.
Also in Mexico they have legal price limits on drugs. They’re printed on the box so you know if you’re getting a deal or paying the max. Also can see a doctor for like 40 pesos (about 2 to 3 USD). It’s much cheaper than my post insurance copay. I understand it’s a different market, but they have better general healthcare than the US.
Also as a side note, most drugs don’t need a prescription. You can tell the pharmacist what hurts and they can tell you what should help (or when to see a Dr). If I want to see my Dr, I’m on hold for 20 minutes then get an appointment in 2 weeks. Once again: viva Mexico!
In the US, when I want to see my doctor I drive 15 minutes to get there and tell them I need to be seen for whatever and then I wait 15 minutes and then talk to the doctor. If they say I need to talk to a specialist, that may take 1-2 weeks after making an appointment though. It’s not cheaper, but at least I can get care when I need it.
Of course, not everyone can afford healthcare in our country. That’s the biggest problem. But it’s generally fast and competent.
Man this is less and less the experience I’m seeing. Months to see my primary. Urgent care I can get in same day, but I work at hospital that saves slots for their employees
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So about the same waiting times as developed nations with a healthcare system, but with 10 000 times the cost.
I pay like 5€ in Belgium to go see a doctor, the rest is paid by my insurance. I can walk into a hospital right now and get service. As long as the issue warrants urgency of course. And a call to my house doctor can be met with a half hour wait time if it is less urgent.
Most people cannot see their primary care physician just by driving up and being like, hey, I need to be seen for x issue. You pretty much have to make an appointment unless you go to a minute clinic or something. And that’s with insurance. Your experience is very much an outlier.
No kidding. There’s at least a month long wait to see any of my doctors. Same with my dentist unless it’s urgent. Usually it’s closer to two months.
If I need immediate attention, I have to go to an urgent care clinic or emergency room.
The nice thing is that in the year 2023, all of my doctors are reachable via the hospital system’s app and they respond to questions relatively quickly. So there’s no need to schedule a 15 minute appointment that ends up taking hours just to ask a simple question or two or to get a referral.
what’s fun is for all this extra money we get a lower (and dropping) life expectancy and a higher infant mortality rate. that’s right, we pay more to bury our kids and then die sooner. FREEDOM BAYBAY!
It has always been known that more money could be saved with Universal health care. But, this couldn’t be done in Congress. Nothing new here.
“That’s terrible! That’s money that should be going towards the military!”
Which proves the point, It’s not about money or the economy. It’s about inflicting suffering.
What? It’s absolutely about money: more of our on the pockets of middlemen.
oh it’s about the money. it’s about funneling money from both the government and directly from the citizenry into the hands of private medical death panel operators
The insurance companies want their cut
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