I don't owe $60k because the USG has $60k in per capita debt. Nobody's coming to me for that. The mental gymnastics you need to go through just to equate the two is exhausting.

"Legally binding" and "advice" are mutually exclusive concepts. And it's 100% possible you can give great financial advice and be in debt. "Max out your 401k and a Roth IRA" is great advice in 99% of circumstances. Just because someone is paying off high interest credit cards instead doesn't make the advice invalid or their choice of priorities incorrect.

I can see where @dmichulke is coming from, nobody is going to come to your door looking for that money in the fashion you describe but you are paying for it one way or another. Who knows, maybe if the debt levels weren't so high the US would be able to afford a healthcare system like the rest of the developed world.

> Who knows

Anyone who has applied a modicum of thought to the issue. The US already has more per-capita public funding going to healthcare than any other nation, we simply don't get a good return on it because that is perceived as "socialism".

And pursuing a highly conservative fiscal policy (far off the right side of the Overton window) is not going to change that, nor advance the cause of said "socialist" policies. It's flabbergasting that you would suggest that as any kind of a reasonable cause-and-effect.