1) Americans pay way, way, way more for health care than anyone else
Health care in the United States is expensive. Insanely, outlandishly expensive.
We spend $2.8 trillion on health care annually. That works out to about one-sixth of the total economy and more than $8,500 per person — and way more than any other country.
If the health-care system were to break off from the United States and become its own economy, it would be the fifth-largest in the world. “It would be bigger than the United Kingdom or France and only behind the United States, China, Japan, and Germany,” says David Blumenthal, executive director of the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund.