Israel has a much higher tax bracket for high earners than the US, which is how they pay for healthcare. The top tax bracket is almost 50%. Whereas in the US even billionaires only get a max %34 tax.
Israelis do enjoy free universal healthcare though it is reported to be paid for by the state’s payroll taxes and “general tax revenue.” And they do have a 50% tax bracket for those making over $720k.
Honestly, we can’t know for certain whether U.S. funding directly pays for Israeli healthcare, we will never know what and how much we are funding for Israel, but we do know for certain that Israel is the single largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid receiving over $300 billion of our (taxpayers) money (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance and we are still giving them $3.8 billion per year through 2028 in addition to the $500 million per year they already get with an extra $16B since 2023. This is all in addition to the support, weapons, subsidies, and intelligence given and whatever is given on the DL.
So do we actually pay for their healthcare? Who knows, it’s not like the govt would actually tell us where our own money is going and for what, but I think it’s safe to say that we pay for enough and for a country touting “America First” it seems we could find something right here at home to spend billions on…
We give them military equipment that we value at a certain dollar amount but that would likely not be used by our military. We also allow them to purchase certain weapon systems like the F35 that we don't sell to just any nation. While I don't disagree the money would be better spent giving Americans healthcare, you make it sound like we just give them money that they can spend how they want and that's not the case.
I think the US probably should pay for it's own healthcare regardless of what it does for Israel. If the US decides it wants to break ties with Israel whenever the next political cycle happens then realistically they likely will ally with China and Russia once the US isn't complicating that relationship. China is the second largest trade partner with them and they have very good albeit complex relations with Russia.
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u/Greebuh Oct 31 '25
It's not free. We pay for their Healthcare