> American culture doesn't like to think about how much of "success" is down to luck. As often as possible, we want to think it's earned. The idea of trying to make up for some of the luck factor by taking some from those with more and giving it to those with less is almost instinctively repugnant, even if it might lead to higher quality of life for everyone involved.
The US government actually spends more per capita on healthcare than the UK or Japan despite it not being universal. We're terribly inefficient with its social spending because have politics is so adversarial and nobody is interested in doing any due diligence.
That number seems impossible on its face. Healthcare spending presumably consists of salaries and overhead, and I can’t imagine overhead is 92% of all spending.
The US is in the ballpark of other OECD countries in terms of social expenditure: https://www.compareyourcountry.org/social-expenditure