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Comment by zmgsabst | Hacker News Reader

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zmgsabst·

The US budget is 6.5T USD for 2022.

The US DOD budget was 753B USD for the same year.

The US Medicare program was 747B USD; with another 45B USD for NIH.

So the US actually spends about equal amounts on military and healthcare, at the federal level — about 11.5% on each.

A better question might be why the US gets so little ROI on its healthcare spending.

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The number you’re using is deceptive. You’re citing the Dept. of Defense’s (mandatory) budget, as if that is all the funding that goes to the military. It is not. After mandatory spending (DoD mandatory funds that you cite, social security, medicare, Medicare, interest…) about 25% of the budget is left for discretionary spending… BUT, nearly half of discretionary spending is government wages that, surprise surprise, includes military salaries and benefits. Then, a huge portion of the remaining discretionary funds are again allotted to the various military branches and war spending. Discretionary spending more than doubles the actual amount we put towards the military.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-is-discretionary-spe...

The DOD’s comptroller says you’re wrong — that figure includes both mandatory and discretionary funding authority.

See page 9 and page 14.

https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudg...

A much better comparison would be to look at the proportions dedicated to research.

E.g., DARPA vs NIH, not DoD vs Medicare or DoD vs NIH.

DARPA’s budget was slightly under $4B in 2022 — an order of magnitude smaller than the NIH.

My original comparison was because Medicare and the DOD have their own funding authorities and I didn’t want to sift through their budgets to find it all.

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