| > In aggregate healthcare only constitutes 8.1% of US household expenditures. Why do you think is 8.1% a reasonable number? Meanwhile, average annual health insurance premiums for employer plans for the last 2 decades have gone way up [1]. A significant portion of that increase has been paid by the employer, masking the increase in costs significantly. > Education only constitutes 2.3%. Education expenditure here is being masked by the debt used to finance a great deal of it, from student loans, to credit cards and home equity loans (often on a parent's home) [2] > The median price per square foot of American housing has not increased People don't buy housing in units of square feet. They buy access to shelter for themselves and their families near work, educational, and other advancement opportunities. The price of that access has increased, even outside the Bay Area. > the price per square foot metric doesn't reflect significant aggregate quality improvements like central A/C, better fire safety, higher capacity electrical circuits, more bathrooms, higher ceilings, better insulation, attached garages Most of these features are commodified to the point that they aren't reflected in price differences much at all. What increases prices are exclusionary zoning laws designed to inflate property values. > A record number of people are getting cosmetic surgeries $16 billion spent on cosmetic surgery [3], out of $3 trillion spent on healthcare overall. That's .5%. The vast majority of people are not getting cosmetic surgery. It's statistically insignifcant compared to overall healthcare costs. > It'd be like claiming there's an ongoing food shortage, while obesity rates are rising. Except nobody claims that there is a calorie shortage. You're using a straw man. 1. https://www.kff.org/report-section/2018-employer-health-bene... 2. https://www.investopedia.com/student-loan-debt-2019-statisti... 3. https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/press-releases/americans... |