a US households spent $980 B on healthcare in 2017, which works
out to be $3200 for every man, woman, and child. (Moeller, 2019)
And that sounds like a lot of money. However, consumers directly pay
for only about 1/3 of the nation's $2.9T personal healthcare costs
(Moelller, 2019) How can that be???
a The reality is that we pay for the remaining 2/3 of that $2.9T
indirectly and that makes it easier for us to not think about what
dollars are going out the door. In fact, in a USA Today article dated
September 2019 (Makary, 2019) nearly half of our federal tax dollars
are spent on healthcare in some way, shape, or form. a Federal and
state governments paid out $1.7T for healthcare, mostly thru
Medicare and Medicaid. That is all tax dollars. The military healthcare
system, the VA health system, and health benefits for 9 million
federal employees, retirees, and family members add up to another
6% of the federal budget (Makary, 2019) Again, healthcare is
indirectly paid thru our taxes.
a Private health insurers spend in excess of $1T (Moeller, 2019).
Most of the private health insurance is provided thru employers.
$280B of that spending is funded by the premiums that employees
pay, and $765 B is from the premiums that employers pay.
"Employers provide health insurance benefits as a trade-off to larger
salaries, so employees are really footing the bill for the entire $1T"
Moeller (2019).
a The last part of the hidden healthcare costs we pay for is the
interest on the national debt that is attributable to health care
spending. This is estimated to be 3% of the federal budget (Makary,
2019). So, the next time someone says that insurance or Medicare or
their employer is paying their healthcare bills, we need to realize that
we are paying the bills thru tax dollars and insurance premiums.
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.” W. Morrow 1938.
a Makary, M. (2019, September). We spend about half of our federal
tax dollars on health care. That's ridiculous. USA Today. Retrieved
February 7, 2022, from https://www.usatoday.com/
Moeller, P. (2019, February). How Americans spend much more on
healthcare than they realize. PBS. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/health-spending-could-rise-
5-5-percent-a-year-through-2027-heres-why
