I thought to myself: no way can this be true. The US generates $21tr a year[1]. How can medical be $2.1tr a year?

…turns out, it’s $2.7tr!!! [2]

[1]www.tradingeconomics.com [2]https://www.statista.com/study/15826/health-care-and-social-...

Why do you think nobody important (politicians, primarily) is really trying to solve those major healthcare problems?

If politicians are willing to pork and barrel over a random soy farm employing 2000 people, for sure they're not going to throw away, say, 5% of the US GDP and possibly 5% of all employment in the US.

I don't know how you're going to get out of it...

[1] "There were 22 million workers in the health care industry, one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors in the United States that accounts for 14% of all U.S. workers, according to the Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey (ACS)."

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/who-are-our-h...

20% https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta....

Absolutely bonkers. One of every five dollars goes to healthcare.

To put this further into perspective: the US military budget is immense, as we know… and it clocks in at 3.7% of GDP [1]

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266892/military-expendit...

To put it even further into perspective, that's 2x as much as comparable western nations with single-payer, who have similar or better outcomes in most cases.

We have this health system to avoid taxes, but this crazy US system probably costs 97-98% of Americans pay more for health stuff than all of their actual taxes combined.

Yes, due to massively inflated prices.

It's funny how on these forums people who actually do something good and useful like GPs are considered overpriced, but at the same time many here work for FANGs or other webad businesses often making more than GPs. I know that if it comes to decide between the health industry and Facebook, Google, Apple or MS I sure know which I'd rather keep.

FAANG doesn’t cost 15% of the GDP though. Not sure why you’re comparing those.

Interestingly, I assumed they were outside the US. Primary care docs (especially independent primary care docs) are one of the lowest paid medical doctors. Most specialists make significantly more money (and have a significantly better workload/schedule).