> The US spends ~$14,570 per person on healthcare. Japan spends ~$5,790 and has the highest life expectancy in the OECD. That gap is roughly $3 trillion per year.

The difference in life expectancy will be influenced by multiple factors and may have more to do with diet and lifestyle than with healthcare.

Japan also spends less per capita than the UK, France or Germany. The US spends a lot more than any of those so the US system is bad value for money.

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legitster 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The US also has GDP per capita of $90k and Japan has a GDP per capita of ~ $35k.

Put another way, in both countries a hip replacement surgery is almost exactly 1/8 of someone's per capita GDP.

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JKCalhoun an hour ago | parent [-]

Too bad Walmart greeter isn't making "per capita GDP".

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cj 42 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Some quick googling suggested cashiers at Seiyu in Japan earn $7-9/hour USD while Walmart is about double that.

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bandofthehawk 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

If the Japanese cashier makes half the amount, but spends only 1/3 on healthcare that still seems to favor Japan

	▲	bloppe 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Well sure, then you're kinda cherry picking data that could easily be considered within a margin of error to make a rather unconvincing point

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ChadNauseam 39 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

They make more than they would in Japan. But people can make $0 in any country. Regardless, part-time Walmart greeters are fortunately not paying full price for health insurance in the US.

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nradov an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Japan also has the "Metabo Law" (aka fat tax). Do you think Americans would go for that?

	▲	Dylan16807 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		"Obesity costs the US healthcare system almost $173 billion a year." So that's about 6% of the difference? I'm not immediately saying no, but it sounds like that's not the real problem.

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rayiner 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I suspect you would see the exact same trend comparing Japan and the U.S. in transit, education, and many other services. The U.S. spends more per capita to get less.

	▲	Aurornis an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The US is a wealthier country and wages are higher here than Japan. The median equivalised household disposable income of a US household is over twice that of a household in Japan. This is one of many reasons why it’s so misleading to compare prices across countries in a vacuum. All of the people doing the work for those education, transportation, and other services and all of their inputs aren’t going to work for Japan-equivalent pay when they’re living in the United States.
	▲	hollerith an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Not in iPhones!

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hermanzegerman 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We in Germany copied a lot of the stupid stuff from America (including the stupid billing system for inpatient stays), so it's not that surprising that our system is also bad value for money.

PS: Outcomes here are not worse than those of rich people in the US, because I know some idiots will claim this to cope

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

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legitster 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Germany didn't copy the US - they just happen to share similar roots.

Both historically had private hospital systems, and just so happen to implement pension/employer-based insurance programs very early on. German's just evolved in one direction and the US evolved in the other.

	▲	hermanzegerman 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		We copied the DRG reimbursement System from the US. And no, we didn't had a historically significant share of private hospital systems, those came with the introduction of the DRG System, which forced many city/church owned hospitals into privatisation. Before that, they had a "Fixed Price per Night" System, which also was a bit stupid, before that they got reimbursed their cost.