Few of the 50 million without insurance incur huge hospital bills. No one is admitted to a hospital who does not have any need for hospital care. More people with insurance changes very little about people's aggregate need for medical care, and what it does change does not simply make the previous hospital costs vanish "because they have insurance." You are failing to grasp the basic financial mechanism of insurance and health care. Insurance is not some magical ticket that makes health care not cost anything.
Health reform coverage cost falls slightly
"On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released new estimates on the cost of subsidizing insurance coverage for millions of Americans.
The bottom line: The government's overall tab is expected to fall slightly over a decade. It is now projected to spend $1.083 trillion between 2012 and 2021. Last year, CBO's estimate was $1.131 trillion.
A key goal of the Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, is to guarantee coverage for everyone regardless of health status and create affordable insurance options for low- and middle-income Americans.
What health reform is (and isn't) doing now
To achieve that end, the law expands eligibility rules for Medicaid and subsidizes the cost of health insurance for low- and middle-income families buying policies on newly created insurance exchanges, which will open in 2014.
The CBO now expects more people to be eligible for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, increasing the government's costs by $168 billion compared to last year's estimates. The reason: higher unemployment projections and lower income expectations.
At the same time, that increased outlay is offset by a reduction in projected costs for various tax credits and the government's share of premiums.
It is also offset by higher-than-expected taxable compensation and penalties, both of which will add to government revenue."
Medicare is the most fiscally destructive policy in the history of our nation.
Only from the perspective of those on the far right.
It doesn't cap health industry salaries, reimbursement rates for services/procedures/tests, or premiums that insurance companies can charge us now that our service to them is federally mandated. If you can't figure out on your own how that accelerates continued cost expansion, then what could I possible say to prove it to you?
From the CBO study referenced above:"the law expands eligibility rules for Medicaid and subsidizes the cost of health insurance for low- and middle-income families buying policies on newly created insurance exchanges, which will open in 2014."
"The CBO now expects more people to be eligible for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, increasing the government's costs by $168 billion compared to last year's estimates. The reason: higher unemployment projections and lower income expectations.
At the same time, that increased outlay is offset by a reduction in projected costs for various tax credits and the government's share of premiums.
It is also offset by higher-than-expected taxable compensation and penalties, both of which will add to government revenue."
You can't demonstrate this whatsoever. To try, you would only point to other countries whose health care has always cost half what ours has. You repeatedly blindly assume that if a country has both UHC and lower health care costs, that it was the implementation of the UHC that caused those costs to be lower. Correlation is not causation.
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According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent more on health care per capita ($7,146), and more on health care as percentage of its GDP (15.2%), than any other nation in 2008.[3] The United States had the fourth highest level of government health care spending per capita ($3,426), behind three countries with higher levels of GDP per capita: Monaco, Luxembourg, and Norway.[3] A 2001 study in five states found that medical debt contributed to 46.2% of all personal bankruptcies and in 2007, 62.1% of filers for bankruptcies claimed high medical expenses.[4] Since then, health costs and the numbers of uninsured and underinsured have increased."
Health care in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
U.S. Ranks Last Among Seven Countries on Health System Performance Based on Measures of Quality, Efficiency, Access, Equity, and Healthy Lives
"Affordable Care Act Holds Promise for U.S. Performance; Focus on Information Technology and Primary Care Vital To Achieving High Performance"
U.S. Ranks Last Among Seven Countries on Health System Performance Based on Measures of Quality, Efficiency, Access, Equity, and Healthy Lives - The Commonwealth Fund