I think there are several reasons why Americans are not aware of the
large costs incurred by the government. First, there are a lot of
indirect costs that we see with taxes. In 2017, American households
spent $980 billion in healthcare costs, which is around $3,200 a
person. However, this is only one third of the nations $2.9 trillion in
personal healthcare costs (Moeller, 2019). Turns out, however, that
federal and state governments paid out $1.7 trillion for healthcare
mostly for Medicare and Medicaid, which comes out in our taxes as
Americans (Moeller, 2019). Secondly, many receive health insurance
through their employers, which pay a brunt of the premiums for their
employees. However, a lot of companies use this as a trade off for
higher salaries. Lastly, most Americans look at the cost
they have to spend rather than what the government is directly
