> The simple answer is that Americans really do consume significantly more healthcare than Europeans. I do not believe this is correct. From the OECD, average

> The simple answer is that Americans really do consume significantly more healthcare than Europeans. I do not believe this is correct. From the OECD, average length of hospital stay across rich countries: https://data.oecd.org/healthcare/length-of-hospital-stay.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthcare/length-of-hospital-stay.htm We pay more but we generally consume less. EDIT: let me add this comparison of health prices across countries from the Health Care Cost Institute. See Table 1: https://healthcostinstitute.org/hcci-research/international-comparisons-of-health-care-prices-2017-ifhp-survey https://healthcostinstitute.org/hcci-research/international-... Our prices are higher. The US is an obese country, but you will find if you look that obesity rates are similar or worse in (e.g.) Mexico and some Gulf States (I think the UAE though I don't have a source for you). We are not a wild outlier in terms of measured unhealthiness. Life expectancies here are lower though, despite vastly higher expenditure than other rich countries. There are important failures on the supply side of the market: From the OECD, we have fewer hospital beds per capita than most rich countries: https://data.oecd.org/healtheqt/hospital-beds.htm https://data.oecd.org/healtheqt/hospital-beds.htm We have fewer doctors per capita than most countries: https://data.oecd.org/healthres/doctors.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthres/doctors.htm Failures of competition throughout the market (including hospital consolidation) keep prices high. We do basically zero evaluation of cost effectiveness.