Germany spends 11.14% of GDP on healthcare or 442B. The US by contrast spends 17.07% of GDP on healthcare or 3498B. Therefore the US spends more and still lacks a comparable system.
Additionally the amount Germany saves by under-spending on defensive wouldn't offset the cost of the wealthfare state for example if Germany spent 3% (the US spends 3.5% on defense) of its GDP on defense instead of the current 1.2% they go from spending 47B to 119B. That extra 72B is less than 17% of their total healthcare costs, which again, are much lower than the US'.
This whole argument is a US Conservative talking point that has little to no basis in fact. When you look at the underlying data, it simply doesn't hold up, the cost of medical care and defense are orders of magnitude different and the US's system is so inefficient, even with the savings after decreasing defense spending from 3.5% of GDP to 1.2% (extra 472B/year) it wouldn't function well.
Just that. And at least in Germany health care isn't even paid for by the government. Rather the government defines minimum things to be covered and sets limits for non-private health insurance premiums in % of gross salary.
You say 17% like that is a small amount. That could easily break their welfare system if they had to extract that shortfall via more taxes or contract their healthcare system.
Also the military is not the only way the European healthcare system is subsidized by the US. Americans finance the drug research that pushes the world forward. If the US adopted European healthcare regulations the incentives for drug research would plummet, and healthcare innovation would slow to a crawl
They spend 11 and the us spends 17%. Do you think German health care somehow gets more expensive if they spend more on their military?
By the way, compare EU military spending to the US, not that of one country.
> The combined military expenditure of the member states amounts to just over is €192.5 billion. This represents 1.55% of European Union GDP and is second only to the €503 billion military expenditure of the United States. The US figure represents 4.66% of United States GDP.
Unless the EU wants to have military places all over the world like the US and equally extraordinary military expenses, for whatever strange reason, far outspending anyone located near Europe, that sounds like plenty enough money for the military. Of course, it seems to me the US uses much of that money for what elsewhere might be called "socialism" and "central economic planning" because doing so directly would never fly with the American public. So it's labeled "defense" and then it's fine.
> Americans finance the drug research that pushes the world forward.
I see claims like that a lot because for some reason some (few but vocal) Americans seem to take personal offense at any suggestion something might not be "the best", I have yet to see even a bad source for it, never mind a good one.
I can tell you German health care is shit too in so many ways that I'd be hard pressed to recommend it as a model to any nation, but according to the actual data it seems it's still better than the US system. Disclosure: I'm German but lived and worked in the US for a decade.
I also think cost alone is not a good path of argument. Costs on an economy level are circular - they are somebody else's income. Also, much of health care is "optional", whatever level people want. The more important point is what does that money flow achieve. According to the analysis I am aware of it achieves less, in the US, on average.
And US military spending since WWII wasn't and isn't high out of the goodness of American's hearts either. The US spend that much because it was beneficial at least from the point of view of those who got to make those spending decisions, and I'm sure they didn't have "foreigners" interests in mind but their own.
Drug companies also spend more on marketing than R&D, and given that marketing drugs is largely banned in other nations, the bulk of it is also spent in the US.
Further, that R&D is often more production development of drugs or drug families first identified in public research efforts. The pipeline for which has been drying up in recent years because of gov't austerity - and in response the billions per drug brought to market number has been going up for the commercial drug company efforts.
> Last time I checked the Swizz, Germans and Brits were major players in drug and medical R and D.
Where do you think those European drug companies get the bulk of their revenues from to do that R&D in the first place?
They make their money off the U.S market!
> Drug development in the US is expensive due to the dysfunctionality that exists within the FDA.
No, drug development is expensive because it's expensive. The EMA & co. are not substantially different in their requirements and expense than the FDA is. Regardless, even still, half of the R&D conducted in the entire world is funded directly by the US.
I’m not arguing that the US healthcare system is more efficient (it definitely isn’t). I’m arguing the political and economic conditions present in post-91, EU-integrated, unified Germany were only made possible in part by constant military and political deterrence provided in part by US defense spending. US military power also increased the politician and diplomatic leverage of the West during the Cold War (the most obvious example being NATO).
Sure, but the "if it wasn't for our military you'd all be speaking Russian/German" angle is about as relevant to arguments that European countries are better than the US at promoting public health as "if it wasn't for our colonialism you'd all be speaking Native American" is to arguments that Silicon Valley is better than Europe at promoting VC-led innovation and growth. US military spending is not the reason the US politicians and political culture has chosen to prioritise tax cuts and healthcare middleman profits over citizens dying of preventable diseases over the last half century
The US could have been a Great Power and built a better public healthcare system.
That’s quite BS knowing France has a much better healthcare system compared to the US and also can nuke any country to death. Defense spending and healthcare are clearly unrelated.
> US military spending makes us considerably less safe.
I see you're based in the UK. In that case, you might want to contact Parliament and let them know, because the UK is currently engaged in most of the same war efforts in the middle east that the US is.
Germany spends 11.14% of GDP on healthcare or 442B. The US by contrast spends 17.07% of GDP on healthcare or 3498B. Therefore the US spends more and still lacks a comparable system.
Additionally the amount Germany saves by under-spending on defensive wouldn't offset the cost of the wealthfare state for example if Germany spent 3% (the US spends 3.5% on defense) of its GDP on defense instead of the current 1.2% they go from spending 47B to 119B. That extra 72B is less than 17% of their total healthcare costs, which again, are much lower than the US'.
This whole argument is a US Conservative talking point that has little to no basis in fact. When you look at the underlying data, it simply doesn't hold up, the cost of medical care and defense are orders of magnitude different and the US's system is so inefficient, even with the savings after decreasing defense spending from 3.5% of GDP to 1.2% (extra 472B/year) it wouldn't function well.