Government Healthcare spending has only gone up the past few
years, and during Covid, the increase was even worse! According to
Brookings (2020), the US spends more on healthcare than any other
countries. Government expenditures on healthcare has grown from
11.9% in 1990, to 24% in 2018, and this is mostly due to the
increased population enrolling government insurance. Although, the
government spends a lot of money on healthcare, many Americans
are not aware of the actual costs and my personal belief on this is
because there are many people out there that do no qualify for
government benefits, but yet, spend a large amount of money for
healthcare from their pockets. These are the people that do not
realize the costs the government incurs. As 2018, about 80% of
people held some kind of health insurance, whether it was private, or
government based, however, these people still incurred very large
out of pocket costs for their medical care. 1 in 50 Americans still had
out of pocket costs that exceeded $5000, and 1 in 200 people had
out of costs that exceeded $10,000 (Nunn, Parsons, Shambaugh,
2020). When we see the costs of healthcare, and the out of pocket
expenses that many people have, even with insurance, we start to
think, that perhaps the government is not doing enough, or needs to
make some changes. In my opinion, this is why people do not realize
the government costs, because individual costs are still very high.
Nunn, R. , Parsons, J., Shambaugh, J. (March 10, 2020). Brookings." A
Dozen Facts About the Economics of the US Health-care System."
Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-dozen-facts-
about-the-economics-of-the-u-s-health-care-system/
