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The real reason American health care is so expensive

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I cannot tell you how obsessed I am with this chart.

It shows exactly what is wrong with America's

conversation about health care.

On one level, you've seen this chart before.

It shows health care spending as a share

of the economy of a bunch of countries.

There's Germany and France and Japan and Canada

and oh! There's America.

But now I want to add something you haven't

seen to this chart.

This is how much of that spending in each country

is private and how much is public.

Here's what's amazing:

America's government spending on health care

on programs like Medicaid and Medicare and the VA -

our versions of socialized medicine.

It's about the same size as these other countries.

These countries where the government runs

the whole health care system!

And then there's our private spending.

It's the private insurance system that makes