How much of a burden? U.S. health care costs were $3.5 trillion in 2017, about 18% of the total gross domestic product, or $10,739 per person. That is, as the authors point out, about four times what the country spends on defense and about three times what it spends on education (and) needlessly eating away at workers wages.

Despite those out-of-control costs, Case and Deaton argue the health care industry has fended off reform by exercising extraordinary influence over government. It represents the single-biggest special interest in Washington, spending more than half a billion a year on lobbying and employing nearly 3,000 operatives. The clearest example of the power of this lobby could well be the Affordable Care Act an unwieldy, jury-rigged effort to expand health insurance coverage that managed to squeak through Congress only after, they write, hospitals, doctors, and pharma companies were effectively paid off.

Couple the staggering cost of health care in the U.S. with the erosion of other key pillars of the traditional safety net traditional old-age pensions and meager unemployment insurance and you may despair, as well.

Deaths of Despair was released last month as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Its analysis seems both timely and dated, as millions of people suddenly find themselves out of work, facing a dreaded disease and struggling to navigate a broken health care system.

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Dying of despair: Is U.S. health care to blame? - STLtoday.com