Obviously corporate taxes would go up or some kind of health levy would be introduced; companies currently pay over $1T a year towards employee health care so their taxes could go up dramatically and they'd still come out ahead. And various levels of government pay about $1.7T towards health care that would be redirected. Between those 2 things, you've already covered 65% of existing health spending.
And that's total health expenditures, including drugs (both prescription and non-prescription), dental, retirement homes, physio/chiropractic/optometry/etc., glasses, hearing aids, etc. If they had a system more like Canada's that primarily covers clinical care, the Medicare for All portion would only cost about 60% of existing health spending.
And of course single payer is more efficient to administer which introduces savings. If they could just match Canada's overhead cost rate, they'd save almost half a trillion dollars a year, which knocks another 10-15% off the total cost.
|