Plus, us already spends much more on healthcare per capita than other countries https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

> Plus, [USA] already spends much more...

but the US is somehow simultaneously less of a welfare/nanny state. I suppose that is a tell: it's not about the actual monetary amounts, but about the national priorities posture and political alignment.

And that's only going to increase as the boomer generation is going to need more and more healthcare.

While the EU welfare is not that much larger than the US (maybe 5% more of GDP), the US also has much more money, a larger portion of the population working, and higher population growth. They also have the technical and business knowledge in tech that the EU lacks (e.g. silicon, rocketry, hyperscalers, etc).

It also has an ever-increasing amount of debt and an aging population, e.g. the US is expected to spend more than $1 trillion a year on the interest on the debt itself, or $7,800 per household per year.

from where did you get that number? What is the source?

Import substitution has failed consistently as an economic strategy.

I call bullshit. China's software industry boomed when they blocked/hobbled western big tech companies that would have strangled them. Slater kicked of America's textile industrialization. Every country that I know that has implemented a quota system in the arts has resulted in the domestic industry blossoming and getting over the self-sustaining hump.

It is self-evident that limiting competition is beneficial to the protected parties.