The US should not be used as an example of a small government. Some people in the US may profess to wanting a small government, but they definitely don’t have one.
Haven’t run the numbers but I would suspect the US government is the largest government in human history.
(Wikipedia has a similar page, but not as navigable imo)
I scroll through a lot of European countries before getting to the US at 13.4%.
I think the healthcare (and other) systems suck because they are complex. There are two ways to hid information: lock it up (lack of transparency) OR dilute it amongst noise. The latter is what complex systems of whatever do. Complex systems create opportunity for those with enough resources to locate and exploit eddies of wealth in the system. While those without the time and resources to spend understanding the complex system just decry it because it is too difficult to understand.
Well clearly absolute staffing numbers would work, but I would go by absolute money spent.
I think it's ironically reductive to simplify a complex problem to a general problem of complexity.
I'm not sure what your point is, we appear to agree that the system is corrupted and that there is regulatory capture. My point is that the US government shouldn't be used as an example of a small government in general and for healthcare specifically. Even if I was to agree that the US should adopt an European healthcare system I don't see how to uncorrupt the existing system to enable that to happen. This notion that a government takeover will take the money out of the system and diminish opportunity for greed is fanciful.
You goto seperate the imperial machine of world policing (paid in the dollats used and held by the world for trade)from the government managing the citizens of the us (parially paid in taxes by the citizens)
This is fair. I personally agree that US government is small, or should be small for that matter. A lot of EU countries have much more efficient governments.
My original comment was about the neo-conservative ideology, which was either directly in power or heavily influencal in governmental policy in US since Reagan. It's, like anything ideological, mostly symbolic. I think the whole healtchare debate is just one of the symbolic points of this ideology. Ideologies change, and I certainly hope this for US and rest of the world that it changes.
Haven’t run the numbers but I would suspect the US government is the largest government in human history.