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In the USA ~17% of GDP appears to be spent on health care. I guess that skews fairly heavily toward elderly people, but 10% on health insurance for a family of four doesn't seem out of the realms of sanity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h...

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By itself maybe not. The problem is I live in California, which means I pay about 40% income tax (state and federal combined). Yet I still don’t get health care/coverage.

Also notice how the gap in that graph is getting wider. It gets worse every year.

Maybe that's because the US needs more healthcare?

A consequence of the US being richer. They spend more on education too. Baumol’s cost disease means as a country gets richer more money will go to labor costs and medicine is really labor intensive. I’m not sure I’d say the US needs more healthcare so much as they can afford it and that’s how they choose to spend the money. Healthcare and education will soak up a practically unlimited amount of money, and if you’re the richest country in the world you have more money. The US has higher household consumption than anywhere else bar Hong Kong. Rich countries spend more on healthcare and the US is the richest.

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