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I'm confused by these data.

It's common knowledge that the US spends much more per capita on Healthcare, however the commonly offered explanation for this is that the private healthcare system in the US is less efficient than the public systems in Europe. But the graph in the provided link shows that US costs are split evenly between private spending and public spending.

This is confusing because the private system in the US covers twice as many people as the public system. Per the US Census Bureau: "in 2018, private health insurance coverage continued to be more prevalent than public coverage, covering 67.3 percent of the population and 34.4 percent of the population, respectively."[0] If the provided data are correct, this would indicate that US private spending is nearly twice as efficient as public spending.

What am I missing?

[0]https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-26...



The current laws restrict the government healthcare programs from negotiating on e.g. drug prices, so the manufacturers name whatever absurd prices they want and the US Gov just pays it. Just another corrupt government giveaway to the private sector.


The gov't portion includes basically everyone over 65 via Medicare, who have a disproportionate share of healthcare needs.




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