Here in Spain health spending is so high that you have to pray to the gods to see a GP. Usually you end up having to go to the ER for any kind of problem because there are no appointments available for weeks.
Food and rent have skyrocketed these years. The official inflation numbers are a joke, they are like... 5%? When food has gone up in average by at least 50%.
Not sure about insurance.
My experience in being able to see q Europe seeing a GP is way better than in the USA but I know this varies by where you live (even inside the USA)
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268826/health-expenditur...
Instead of trying to explain away official statistics by talking about things you see on your drive to work, consider updating your priors instead.
Here's what they think. Telling everyone to eat some charts while they're getting squeezed is not going to go over well.
I don't think there is any growth in US that Europeans have to be jealous of. Any "growth" is just more wealth for billionaires, at a high cost to individuals.
Health spending accounts for nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy [1]. Between 2000 to 2020 health expenditure tripled from 1.4 trillion to 4 trillion, at a 4.2% annual growth rate. This is projected to accelerate, grow at 5.3% and reach 6.8 trillion by 2030. [3]
It is mostly health-care, which grows faster than the economy. Then higher rents, high cost of food, the numbers go up! Almost all sectors are monopolies/oligopolies with pricing power, they can extract more and more. Of course, the numbers will go up. But I doubt anybody is happier.
Family health insurance through work now costs $24,000 a year (note: this is just insurance, not the total cost!). Job-based health insurance are up 7% from last year: https://www.foxbusiness.com/healthcare/family-health-insuran...
A lot of new construction is hospitals. I have two new hospitals coming up where I live, in a one mile radius.
[1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe...
[2] https://www.oecd.org/health/health-spending-set-to-outpace-g...
[3] https://www.cms.gov/files/document/nhe-projections-forecast-...