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How exercised are you by the (government mandated, incredibly corrupt) vast inefficiency in US medical care?

I realize that this is a day-old comment, and my question is unrelated to the thread topic, but your comment is a puzzlement. The US medical system is a vast beast, with enormous variety over market sectors and regions, so it's hard to understand what you could mean as a general critique of its "efficiency". Which itself begs the question of how one would define "efficiency", how it would be measured, and how a basis of comparison to another nation's "system" could be established.

And what all of that has to do with a hundred billion dollars in US taxpayer largess being directed to what is possibly the most corrupt regime in Europe (as the US elite skim their vig. off of the top), which is the subject of most of this thread's ire.

Would you be willing to cast any light on these questions? Would be most appreciated.

In all countries, the US included, health care spending is almost entirely government provided or government mandated.

In addition, it is highly regulated, explicitly or implicitly; in the US much of this is implicit, through judicial precedent and legal risk. But that is the typical case with US regulation of anything.

In financing health care, the US is typical of the G7 or G20 countries, no matter the war over “single payer”. The US is not that structurally different from, say, France, which likewise is heavily into mandates.

However, the total effect of regulation, legal hazards, institutional policy, etc., has created a profoundly different cost structure in the US vs the rest of the world.

Constant dollars, PPP-
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#GDP%20per%20capita%20and%20health%20consumption%20spending%20per%20capita,%202021%20(U.S.%20dollars,%20PPP%20adjusted)

Comparing outcomes (lifespan if you like, even disaggregated by race or age or class), the US is horribly inefficient.

There are studies by medical categories and procedures that go far into explaining that everything costs much more in the US. This is NOT about US consumers opting for more services, etc., but that comparable services are more costly.

Note: one has to use macroeconomic national accounts for this, as many countries, using mandates, finance much of this with “hidden taxes”. But that is taxation nonetheless; this was thrashed out from the 80’s on.

Using US % GDP vs Germany (which has an older population), the US spends 18.3% of GDP on health care vs 12.8% in Germany. It is clear that the US spends an excess (wastes) at least 5.5% of GDP on health care. The entire US defense budget is @ 3.5% of GDP.

Or to put it another way, the US could have the Canadian “single payer” system just with what it collects on Medicare, leaving out all other funding or mandates, or it could have 2X the British or Spanish single payer systems (the Spanish system, unlike the British one, is excellent). In any case, what the US is doing is absurd.

5.5% of GDP is $1.4 Trillion, or 1400 billion. We can go into other spending categories if you like. The problem with US finances is deep, systematic corruption in every category. The US is vastly corrupt.

Most of the aid from the US is in the form of weapons, and a lot of that is older weapons. A lot of it has already been paid for. FWIW, I'd be fine with ALL US aid either being weapons or humanitarian aid. I'd even be ok with a little humanitarian aid for Russian refugees if (big if) it can be determined they are legit. The Euro's can worry about financial support.

As for our health care system, I don't need to compare to other countries, etc. I only need to have been watching ours for going on 50 years now, as gov't involvement & gov't collusion with big health increases. (This is NOT a swipe at individual providers, most doctors, nurses, EMS personnel, etc.)