March 15, 2016
The Washington Post ran a major piece pointing out some of the difficulties involved in shifting over to a universal Medicare system as advocated by Senator Bernie Sanders. While the piece notes many of the problems, it never mentions that the United States pays hugely more per person for its health care with little obvious benefit in terms of outcomes. As a result, there would be enormous potential savings from switching to a universal Medicare-type system.
For example, according to the OECD, the UK spends less than half as much per person as the United States. This means that if the United States could get its costs down to UK levels, it would save more than $20 trillion (@ $60,000 per person) over the next decade. While accomplishing a transition to a more efficient system would be difficult, as the piece notes, but the potential gains are enormous.
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