It doesn’t matter who pays for it, in the statistics it appears that an appendicitis generates much more economic activity in the USA than EU.

Healthcare spending per capita in the USA is 12K, the second most expensive is Germany and it’s 7K.

The life expectancy in Germany is 82 and in the USA is 77, so it’s not the case that Americans are getting much better one, explaining the higher costs.

Oh and that appendicitis? It kills much more Americans than Germans(0.08 vs 0.06 per 100K).

All your points I agree with. I didn't say it was a good system. I've lived in Japan and I loved the government health insurance. One of my biggest annoyances about being back in the US is how I get my insurance through my job, so now every time I hop jobs I have to do the stupid math and figure out the new employer's health crap.

I'm just saying that I see these weird takes about Americans paying like 10k for a single visit when that's just not the reality for most people. Only 8.6% of Americans were uninsured in 2020. Most insurance plans have a cap that doesn't even allow you to pay more than like 2-10k in an entire year.

Is it more expensive? Duh. It's just that there's more nuance to the issue. If I wasn't American (or I was an American that didn't understand how insurance actually works) I might have read that and believed that the poor Americans are all living in hell.

So yeah...we can talk about the issue because it's a big deal. In fact, I think it's the #1 biggest problem with American society right now and it's maddening that I never see anyone focusing on it. However, I don't like to see this kind of hyperbole from OP because people turn their brains off and stop looking at the facts.