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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.