responder41

Overall US salaries are also second only to Luxembourg (https://www.statista.com/chart/13093/the-countries-with-the-...)

to be a bit pedantic, that says they account for only 15% of the excess healthcare spending, relative to other countries. It's not surprising given doctors in the united states have a higher level of training compared with many peer countries, and _all_ salaries are much higher in the united states compared with almost any country.

The 15% extra administrative cost of insurance and 15% extra administrative burden of applying care are the big culprits, in addition to extra costs on medicine and machinery. But it's interesting. Why is it that a comparatively deregulated and privatized system has so much extra pricing cost from bureaucracy?

Generally speaking nurses in the united states cannot provide a diagnosis, at least without jeopardizing their license. You can already find a doctor using a service like Zocdoc who may cut out middlemen, though regulatory capture has made it close to impossible to meaningfully reduce costs in this way. I would not recommend using AI to diagnose or treat yourself (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/well/ai-chatgpt-medicatio..., for instance) without the help of somebody highly trained to interpret this information and make good decisions.