Hello old friend! I hope the winter has not been too chilly up North for you this winter!
I think the most of it goes to profits by monopolies by health care providers.
March/April 2012
Gerald Friedman, Professor of economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
“While providing superior health care,” the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (HR 676), “would save as much as $570 billion now wasted on administrative overhead and monopoly profits. A single payer system would also make health-care financing dramatically more progressive by replacing fixed, income-invariant health-care expenditures with progressive taxes.”
Friedman estimated that, in 2013, single payer would save $215 billion on administrative costs to providers, $23 billion on government administration, and $153 billion on private health insurance administration. It would also save $178 billion on drugs, medical equipment, and hospital care by reducing their market power, for a total of $570 billion. Of that, single payer would spend $110 billion extending coverage to all, $142 billion on eliminating co-pays and increasing utilization, especially home health care and dental, and $74 billion to raise Medicaid payment rates to providers, for a net savings of $244 billion.
Friedman modeled one financing scheme consistent with HR 676: current federal health spending, current state Medicaid spending, plus a small financial transactions tax, high income surtax (6 percent on top 5 percent of income-earners), surtax on unearned income (6 percent), and 4-7 percent payroll tax (4 percent on bottom 40 percent). Compared with what people pay today in taxes, premiums and out-of-pocket payments,
single payer would save money for 95 percent of Americans while providing medically necessary care to all."
Funding a National Single-Payer System | Physicians for a National Health Program
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