[adventured]

> our complete lack of socialized safety net

The US spends a larger share of its GDP on its social safety net than Canada does.

What you're confused about is the difference between what a nation spends and what it gets for that spending. The US doesn't lack a social safety net, it has exceptionally incompetent government systems at the state and federal level while simultaneously spending a very large sum on its mediocre social safety net. US Government systems spend like European welfare states and the US doesn't get the same results from that spending.

If the poorest 1/4 of the population being covered by wildly expensive (for the taxpayer), free healthcare isn't part of a social safety net, then what qualifies exactly?

EBT (free food for the poor, aka food stamps) and Housing First are two other prominent social safety net programs. The US spends an enormous amount of money on EBT ($111b just at the federal level for 2021). The US housing first program was so successful it brought the US homelessness rate down to approximately where France and Canada are at.

Social Security and Medicare are social safety net programs, and the two largest by cost in world history. Neither program pays for itself properly, it's subsidized by taxpayers (and more so by the day).

[csomar]

The US also has a large incompetent population, compared to Europe. Europe only recently got a huge surge of under-skilled refugees, and this should weigh down on the system (some countries like Italy/Spain are already near bankruptcy).

The US also spends a lot on its military, which is part of the social safety net. Europe ignored military for other expenses and is now paying heavily for it.

That being said, the US does not make good use of its resources. But it's a much harder problem that you'd expect.