The US spends about 600 billion on the military and about a trillion on Medicare and health.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...

Not absurd at all. Since a billion years ago the South African (National) Defence Force has always had four equal branches:

- Army

- Navy

- Air Force

- Medical

But the USA is already mostly there: there are eight uniformed services. One is the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps that employs the surgeon general.

But you will have to stop your military's obsession with earning combat action badges. From what I can tell its creating a class-hierarchy inside the armed services.

That won't help if your aim is to create a serious non-combat uniformed service with the same prestige that mainly does nursing.

I predict this will happen when the US realizes that health of its citizens is a matter of national security. If that doesn’t happen during this pandemic, then I don’t know what can make it see that simple fact except a war happening in the country.

The name might be a bit different though: say, National Health Service.

We literally have one; see #6:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed_services_of_the_Unit...

But I agree- what if we treated it as seriously as [can't believe this is a real thing] the Space Force.