The US spends the most per capita[0] on healthcare in the world, all to receive a healthcare system that still requires lots of citizens to carry private insurance. I've never dug deep into why, but it sure is noteworthy.

0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health...

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ch4s3 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The private insurance expenditure is part of that per capita number. US healthcare isn't "A system", its a number of interrelated systems that have lots of expensive hand-offs. We also spend a ton on lifestyles diseases because no one walks and culturally we eat like shit on average.

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phillipcarter 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> We also spend a ton on lifestyles diseases because no one walks and culturally we eat like shit on average.

And there's a pretty straight line between that and government subsidies for sugar and processed foods in general, not to mention car-based infrastructure, although the latter doesn't stop other countries from not having crippling obesity rates.

	▲	ch4s3 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> And there's a pretty straight line between that and government subsidies for sugar and processed foods in general No there isn't. Sugar subsidy accounts for 1.7 cents per 12-ounce can of soda. Soda in the US is generally inelastic, and research has shown that a 10% increase in price results in lessss than a 5% decrease in consumption. Americans just like sugar and sitting, culturally.
	▲	TimorousBestie 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		And acknowledging the very obvious instances of regulatory capture that directly harm quality of life is political suicide for anyone with even the smallest amount of access to power. It’s hard getting normies to admit that if soft drinks weren’t so heavily subsidized by the government at every step of manufacture and distribution, there would be less overall obesity.

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ihumanable 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The graph shows both public and private expenditure. If you only consider the public per-capita expenditure it's more than every other nation on the graphs public + private per-capita spending.

	▲	jltsiren 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The data behind the graph is probably from OECD, which does not use a public/private classification. Mostly because in many OECD countries, "public" healthcare is largely funded by private insurance. According to OECD data, US healthcare spending in 2023 was 28% from government schemes, 55% from health insurance, 11% out-of-pocket, and 5% from other sources. For most countries, the health insurance category is further split into compulsory and voluntary categories, but that distinction does not really exist in the US. All US health insurance spending is reported in the compulsory health insurance category. Probably because the bulk of the spending is from employment-based insurance, which is effectively mandatory. (You usually can't opt out and take cash instead.) Naive aggregators then combine government spending and compulsory insurance and report that as public spending.

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duped 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I've never dug deep into why

The wealthy people that run insurance companies bribe our politicians to keep it that way.