[throwaway37585]

Interesting that you mention that. Relative to the size of its wealth, the U.S. spends a disproportionate amount on health care. Even as a high income country, the U.S. spends more per person on health than comparable countries. Total health expenditures per capita, U.S. dollars, PPP adjusted, 2016 [1]:

United States: $10,348

Switzerland: $7,919

Germany: $5,550

Netherlands: $5,385

Austria: $5,227

Belgium: $4,839

France: $4,600

United Kingdom: $4,192

See [2] for a breakdown by country of government/compulsory healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP: https://imgur.com/a/BzaVX6w. The U.S. comes out on top, by far. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the problems with U.S. healthcare won't be solved by pouring more money into it, but rather by addressing systemic issues with the way it works?

Regarding education:

The United States spends more than other developed nations on its students' education each year... Spending, of course, only tells part of the story and does not guarantee students' success. The United States routinely trails its rival countries in performances on international exams despite being among the heaviest spenders on education... The average first-year high school teacher in the United States earns about $38,000. OECD nations pay their comparable educators just more than $31,000... Among all educators, U.S. payrolls are competitive. The average high school teacher in the United States earns about $53,000, well above the average of $45,500 among all OECD nations. [3]

The United States spent $12,300 per FTE student at the elementary/secondary level, which was 29 percent higher than the average of $9,600 for OECD member countries reporting data... At the postsecondary level, total government and private expenditures on education institutions as a percentage of GDP by the United States (2.7 percent) were higher than the OECD average (1.6 percent) and were higher than those of all other OECD countries reporting data. [4]

Again, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the problems with U.S. education won't be solved by pouring more money into it, but rather by addressing systemic issues with the way it works?

[1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

[2] https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-glob...

[4] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

[knuththetruth]

The US spends a disproportionate amount on healthcare because its system is privatized. Healthcare is cheaper relative to the degree of nationalization, as your own data shows. Switzerland and Germany are closed to the American model (although not as bad) and cost more. You specifically said “tax and spend,” not just spend, because you reduce costs with societal-level economies of scale. Of course you spend more in a privatized system - you have a bunch of vultures trying to profit off people at their weakest and most vulnerable.

Education in the US suffers from a similar problem because of its patchwork and variable system of state and federal funding, much of which was specifically designed to disadvantage the poor and minorities.

All your data points show is that privatizing and applying inconsistent distribution regimes to what should be public goods makes them more costly, less efficient, and produce worse outcomes in aggregate.

[throwaway37585]

> The US spends a disproportionate amount on healthcare because its system is privatized. Healthcare is cheaper relative to the degree of nationalization, as your own data shows. Switzerland and Germany are closed to the American model (although not as bad) and cost more. You specifically said “tax and spend,” not just spend, because you reduce costs with societal-level economies of scale. Of course you spend more in a privatized system - you have a bunch of vultures trying to profit off people at their weakest and most vulnerable... All your data points show is that privatizing what should be public goods makes them more costly, less efficient, and produce worse outcomes in aggregate.

Wrong. I specifically linked to data showing government healthcare spending, not private healthcare spending (https://imgur.com/a/BzaVX6w). Read again.

> Education in the US suffers from a similar problem because of its patchwork and variable system of state and federal funding, much of which was specifically designed to disadvantage the poor and minorities.

I don't disagree with this. There are other important factors, of course.