Affording Single Payer (BFP)
This is how we can afford single-payer health care:
1. The U.S. pays $8,160 per capita for health care, two times more than other industrialized countries.
2. Thirty percent of the money spent on health care goes to administration. We pay $350 billion per year to shuffle papers for multiple insurance companies.
3. Under a single-payer plan, the estimate for administration is 5 percent of total costs. We would save 25 percent to begin with.
4. Our businesses would save $4,824 per employee on average that they now spend for individual coverage (Kaiser Family Foundation). The average family plan costs the employee $8,550.
5. If our health care costs come in line with other developed countries under a single-payer system, we would save about $4,080 per person or $1.24 trillion per year. Of course, the cost of health care would be covered by taxes: payroll, gas and on things that might be detrimental to our health, such as cigarettes, junk food, and alcohol.
What’s not to like about a single-payer system? Under single-payer, our businesses would be more competitive, our government would have the money to cover it, and we’d all be healthier. Maybe it’s time for Vermont to lead the way. By having a single-payer system here we would attract businesses and talented people to our state, and our young people would be encouraged to stay.
LORI NIEDERER
Fairfield