[cucumber3732842]

>But no one wants to fix it. US doctors are overpaid. US nurses are over paid. Dug companies. Admin. Lawyers. Everyone who makes the system work, and everyone who makes the system a mess are paid a fortune for it.

17% of GDP is healthcare. So between 1:10 and 2:10 people in this country are making more than they otherwise would (note I did not say wealthier) because the system is screwed up and hoovers up more of everyone else's wealth than it ought to.

Slavery was 12% and (while obviously geographic concentration of industry plays a lot into it) it took a war for them to take a haircut.

[uoaei]

Earnings represented by GDP are not distributed evenly across a given population. That 17% of extra earnings goes to relatively few people in the States (I'm putting this very mildly, the concentration in reality is insanely lopsided).

[cucumber3732842]

The US healthcare industry is ~10% of the workforce. More if you include people affected by the supply distortions thereof (all those techbros working for agentic penis pump startups).

The fact that that pie is not sliced evenly does not change the fact that is an integer multiple larger than it ought to be.

[pjc50]

Possibly reasonable point about labour supply ruined by an absurd analogy with slavery.

[nekusar]

Not at all.

Systemic inertia is unimaginably strong.

I easily see that changing the USA to be more socialist, especially in areas where game theory indicates its the best solution, will likely take a civil war.

That also aligns with Marx's writings, that the capitalists will not acquiesce without a fight, and a big fight at that.

The slavery and Civil War connection is a comparison of similar economic magnitudes.