If I were president of the United States, I would certainly be concerned about the cost and performance of the country’s healthcare system. The grim statistics are well known. As of 2022, the US spent $12,555 per person on healthcare, almost twice as much as other wealthy countries, including Australia. That gap alone cancels out about half of the difference in income per person between the US and Australia, according to World Bank estimates.

Higher expenditure on healthcare would not be a problem if it delivered a healthier population. But this is not the case. The US has one of the lowest life expectancies of any rich country. And even though more Americans die young, those who survive have worse health than elsewhere. Americans suffer from chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma and depression at around twice the (age-adjusted) rate of other rich countries.

This gap is too large to be accounted for by specific causes like gun violence or drug overdoses, or even unequal income distribution. The US has worse health outcomes at every point on the income distribution scale........

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