What exactly are medical bills paying for anyway? Not longer lifespans.

[ck4829]

You're e-begging on GoFundMe for relief from them, you're taking on debt because of them, you're getting your wages garnished because of them, they dwarf the ones in other countries, you're afraid to use our healthcare system because of them, and you're going into bankruptcy because of them.

But what exactly do medical bills pay for?

The American people having longer lifespans and leading in other health indicators, right? Not quite.

The United States spends more on healthcare than any other G7 country, according to a March study by the Our World in Data project. Yet among G7 nations, the U.S. ranks last in life expectancy and lags behind on most other health indicators. Healthcare has long been a central issue in American politics, and the debate only intensified after Luigi Maggione, outraged by the system’s injustices, killed a top executive of the country’s largest health insurance company. Amid the uproar, Donald Trump vowed to fix America’s “inefficient” healthcare system. So far, however, his only proposal has been to make medical service prices more transparent, a measure that experts argue will do little to improve healthcare accessibility. The root of the problem is far deeper: the U.S. is the only developed country without universal government health insurance. Not only does Trump oppose introducing such a system, but he even tried to repeal its weaker alternative — Obamacare — which had greatly increased the number of insured Americans. Meanwhile, about a third of Americans are forced to forgo necessary medications due to costs.

https://theins.press/en/economics/279868

So again, what exactly are medical bills paying for anyway?