The Taxpayers' Burden: The True Cost of Health Insurance and Health Care-Related Spending in the United States

On average the typical taxpaying individual in the United States paid $12,313 toward their personal health care insurance (not including any associated out-of-pocket expenditures should an individual actually require care and be subject to a deductible) and their share of public spending on health care in 2008. A two-parent family could have expected to pay $27,898. I argue these estimates which isolate adult Americans under 65 earning over 200 percent of the federal poverty line are more appropriate than the typical accounting of $7,691 per capita (in 2008)—still the highest in the world—estimated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the National Health Expenditure Survey.

The figure below breaks down this spending. You can read here (originally prepared for 2010 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science in Chicago, IL) the full report defending the estimate and examining the extreme redistributive spending on health care in the United States.